Scottish Bus Open Data – and what it means for S22 in Scotland

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 was a significant piece of legislation for Scotland’s transport system and there are still ripple effects nearly 6 years on.

This landmark legislation gave new bus franchising powers to local authorities (with plans now finally developing in the West of Scotland) and placed new duties on NHS Boards to work with our sector (with plans still stalled but CTA pressing for action).

But one part of the law which somewhat flew under the radar was its provisions around ‘bus open data’, which could now have repercussions for Community Transport operators using Section 22 permits to deliver community bus routes north of the border.

Bus open data is non-personal and non-commercially sensitive data about buses and bus services which is accessible, discoverable and free to use, re-use or redistribute. It includes information about fares, routes, and timetables, as well as live ‘real time’ information, such as the location of the bus and the availability of seats or accessible spaces.

Today, depending on where you live or on your needs, this information isn’t always available or accessible, causing anxiety, confusion, stress or inconvenience for many.

The bus open data agenda is about improving bus services through improved availability, accessibility and transparency. Bus open data could be used by:

• Passengers to more easily compare travel options and more seamlessly plan multi-modal journeys;
• Researchers to better understand the complexity of our transport system; or,
• Innovators to develop new products and services.

Transport Scotland now has plans for secondary legislation which would commence the 2019 law and make them a mandatory requirement for all bus operators – including community-owned, non-profit bus operators using Section 22 permits. (Section 19 is, rightly, exempt.) A recent consultation paper argues that ‘bus open data is essential to make travel on public transport more accessible and to increase patronage of public transport’.

There are 20 Community Transport operators across Scotland delivering community bus services under a Section 22 permit, or a PSV licence, including local, long distance and express services, which could be affected. These serve a range of urban, rural and island communities from Glenfarg to Glasgow, and from Ayr to Orkney.

Community Transport is integral to Scotland’s bus network. Our members directly deliver local bus services, indirectly plug gaps in the system and provide an essential first- or last-mile link into municipal and commercial routes for bus passengers. Community Transport should be more closely integrated with the rest of the bus network (as well as with rail).

We therefore accept the rationale for community bus services being within scope given the need to improve the passenger experience. We agree with Drew Smart, Chair of Glenfarg Community Transport Group, Winner of the Best Bus Service in Scotland Award for 2024, who told me:

“We would enthusiastically support anything which makes information available to passengers to make it easier to connect to other services and journey plan. At the moment it still seems to not quite hit the mark.”

An iterative timetable for implementation from April 2026 to April 2028 has been proposed. Submitting timetable and fares data should be relatively straightforward for operators.

However, we are concerned that community bus operators are not ready (and cannot afford) to gather and transmit real time information, which could be required from April 2028. There will be a significant challenges and costs to upgrading the fleet to ensure every vehicle can monitor, record and share live location, disruption, capacity and accessibility information.

Community bus operators tell us that these increased costs could result in the loss of existing community bus services due to unaffordable increases in operational costs and prevent the growth of community bus services due to higher set-up capital costs.

Lothian Community Transport Services operate several Section 22 services to plug gaps in the region’s bus network. And, as their CEO, Kim Ward, explained to me:

“We could only provide real time tracking data currently. We could not provide data around passenger numbers, accessible spaces or disruptions. We simply cannot afford the financial investment that this tech would require.

The reality is that even with NSG [Network Support Grant] funding, we subsidise our community bus currently with core funding. It is not financially viable to invest money into community bus travel over and above the funding we currently use for it. Therefore, it is almost certain that we would withdraw these services if we were faced with this requirement to spend money.”

A number of smaller CTA members are particularly worried that these new regulations could “impose a huge financial and administrative burden” on them, as Galloway Community Transport’s Jon Betts put it to me.

Therefore, we’re calling on Transport Scotland to work collaboratively with CTA and community bus operators to prevent the loss of community bus services by:

• Providing the guidance, training and tools our members need to comply;
• Providing financial support to upgrade vehicles where required; and,
• Considering a separate timescale for implementation for community bus operators, potentially on a case-by-case basis.

We’ll be advocating for this and for our members, and providing whatever support we can on compliance, in the months and years ahead.

Click here to download our full response to Transport Scotland’s proposals.