One example of where bad draftsmanship and bad policymaking have resulted in bad outcomes is the application of the Passenger Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2005 (PSVAR) to coaches. The idea was that by the 1st January 2020, all public transport across all modes would be accessible to all. And, on rail and bus, that’s largely what happened. But on coach, the 1st January 2020 was the trigger for all hell to break loose. What happened?
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The way the regulations worked, all new buses and coaches have had to be accessible from 2000 but older buses have had a grace period to enable operators to churn through their fleets. This meant that inaccessible single deck buses have had to be eliminated from 2016 while inaccessible double-deck buses had to go in 2017 and inaccessible “Local and scheduled” coach services have had to go by 1st January 2020. Given that all new buses and coaches have had to be accessible since 2000 (and it is very rare for a bus or coach to stay in service for 20 years), these final deadlines should have been largely irrelevant as by the time they came round, all they were doing was prohibiting a handful of outlying edge cases.
And so it proved in 2016 and 2017. By the time all buses had to be accessible, they largely already were. A tiny number of truly ancient buses had to be withdrawn and special dispensation had to be made for TfL’s heritage Routemaster service (sadly now defunct) but, largely, the passing of these deadlines was something of a non-event. (The rail deadline of 2020 under equivalent rail regulations was slightly tougher as rail vehicles have a longer service life but some pragmatic derogations were made, and the offending vehicles are now gone), But when the final coach deadline of 1st January 2020 came round, most coaches were still inaccessible and a huge argument kicked off.