DfT consults on routes to making bus information accessible

Two new consultations on bus information have been published by the DfT, one covering audio-visual information to help the visually and/or hearing impaired, the other covering open data requirements to improve digital information about bus services

You wait ages for a consultation about bus information and then two come along at once. The DfT has just published proposals that will require operators to broadcast audio-visual information about services to help passengers with visual and/or hearing impairments, and for making data such as fares, routes and timetables ‘open’ so that they can be used in apps and other digital products.  

The consultation on audio-visual information applies to the whole of Britain, and sets out the Government’s plans for making accessible information regulations, which were a provision of the Bus Services Act 2017. Operators will be required to provide audible and visible information that identifies the route, each upcoming stop, and points at which diversions start or end. 

Information identifying the route must be provided at scheduled stopping places where the vehicle stops. “The provision of this information should be timed to coincide with the period during which the front passenger doors of the vehicle are open at scheduled stops,” the DfT explains. To ensure the requirement does not delay services, the information provided audibly “need not have been provided in full before the passenger doors are closed and the vehicle moves away”. 

Information about scheduled stopping places will have to be announced and displayed to give passengers enough time to signal to the driver that they want to alight. 

The DfT envisages the regulations commencing on 6 April next year, though the compliance dates will be staggered depending on vehicle age and size of operator. For larger operators (those with more than 20 vehicles): 

• vehicles first used after 5 April 2014 must comply from 6 April 2021 

• vehicles first used between 6 April 2012 and 5 April 2014 must comply?from 6 April 2023 

• vehicles first used on or before 5 April 2012 must comply from 6 April 2025

For operators with fewer than 21 vehicles: 

• vehicles first used on or after 6 April 2019 must comply from 6 April 2021 

• vehicles first used before 6 April 2019 must comply from 6 April 2025

The DfT proposes exemptions for services operated by vehicles designed to carry fewer than 17 passengers, heritage vehicles, and services covered by permits issued under Sections 19 and 22 of the Transport Act 1985.

The central estimate of the DfT’s economic assessment is that the requirement will impose £173.6m costs on operators between 2019 and 2028 (discounted 2014 prices). Yet it expects operators to earn an extra £89.5m by selling advertising space on the audio-visual (AV) equipment and an extra £86.7m from increased passenger numbers. The DfT says its estimate of advertising revenue is “based on information from the charity Guide Dogs [which has lobbied for the audio-visual regulations] that some operators have been using advertising revenues to offset the costs of installing AV technology”. The Department believes, however, that small operators are likely to fit low-cost AV systems that are incapable of carrying advertising.

Making bus data open

The open data consultation applies only to bus operations in England outside London. Setting out the rationale for action, the Department says: “We want passengers to be able to effectively plan their journeys, identify and purchase best value tickets and travel knowing their bus arrival and journey times, taking the uncertainty out of bus travel. We will do this by placing information obligations on operators and local transport authorities.” 

Regulations will require operators outside London to release open data information about routes, timetables, fares and tickets, as well as real-time information about services (the latter responsibility will be shared with local transport authorities). The DfT will build a Bus Open Data portal to enable operators and local transport authorities to provide their data and for data users, such as app developers, to find and use data to provide applications, products and services for passengers.

 “Once the data is open, the technology sector will be able to create end user applications and digital products or services,” says the DfT. “Bus operators will also, if they wish, be able to provide websites and apps as well as on-board signage and displays and local transport authorities will be able to provide real-time signage and displays at bus stations and stops if budgets permit.”

The DfT notes that bus operators and local transport authorities already provide a significant amount of route, timetable and real-time information but that information is often “patchy and inconsistent”. In addition, “there is no requirement for operators to publish fare information, a lack of an agreed national data standard for the release of fares and tickets information, and commercial reticence for some operators to publish this data”.

The regulations will apply to all operators of local bus services, regardless of size because the primary legislation (the Bus Services Act 2017) does not include exemption-making powers. To minimise the negative impacts for smaller operators, a phased implementation approach is proposed: 

• route and timetable information by end of 2019

• basic fare and ticket information by end of 2020 

• real-time information by end of 2020 

• complex fare and ticket information by end of 2022 

Information will have to be provided using existing recognised standards, where appropriate, with route and timetable information provided using the TransXchange format and real-time information in the Siri SM format. Where an agreed data standard is not available, the DfT will create and provide new standards. For fare and ticket information, it has commissioned the development of a UK NeTEx profile (NeTEx being a Europe-wide multi-modal data standard).

For real-time information, operators will be responsible for generating and providing automatic vehicle location data, but the requirement to transform this into meaningful real-time information for passengers and provide this to the Bus Open Data portal will sit with local transport authorities. 

The consultation also proposes new statutory requirements on local transport authorities to maintain two datasets. Information about bus stops or stopping places is currently published in the National Public Transport Access Node (NaPTAN) dataset – for use by local authorities, bus operators and data users. A second dataset, the National Public Transport Gazetteer (NPTG), is a topographic database of all cities, towns and settlements in the UK, providing a frame of reference for the NaPTAN database. Both datasets are owned by the DfT, but the maintenance of the datasets is currently completed by local transport authorities on a voluntary basis. The DfT proposes placing a statutory requirement on councils to maintain NaPTAN and NPTG for bus data only. 

The deadline for responses to both consultations is 16 September.