Bus policy

Policy Aims

• To provide the environment for bus to act as an effective economic enabler by providing competitive, high quality public transport
• To enable bus to provide an effective alternative to the car by improving reliability, average bus speed and encouraging improvements to the quality of services and infrastructure
• To encourage investment in more efficient vehicles that produce less greenhouse gases and contribute to the targets in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009
• To link communities, people, places of business and employment and essential services through encouraging the maintenance and development of the bus network in Scotland

Policy Background

Moving into the Future: An Action Plan for Buses, the Bus Action Plan, was published as part of the National Transport Strategy in December 2006. It identified the need for Scotland-specific bus policy guidance on a series of topics, intended to promote and share best practice with a view to raising the standard of quality in the bus industry.

In March 2008, a High Level Forum of key industry representatives from central and local government, bus operators and regulatory bodies, highlighted the importance of pursuing initiatives on the basis of a partnership approach. The report of the high level forum is available to download. This is vital in working for effective bus services and in taking account of the developing roles and responsibilities of Local Authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships (RTPs).

As a result, the general guidance "Progress Through Partnership" was published in September 2008. Since then, a suite of bus policy guidance has been produced to provide a ‘toolkit' of initiatives which can be developed to address improvements in bus services.