The number of PCV driving tests being taken in Great Britain lags well behind volumes seen in previous decades although the test pass rate is up significantly since then, data compiled by DVSA has shown.
Its figures by financial year date back to 2007/08. In that 12-month period, 10,331 PCV driving tests were taken with a pass rate of 50.4%.
The total fell below 10,000 in 2009/10 and has stayed there ever since. 2023/24 saw 7,085 tests and the first half of 2024/25 provisionally returned 3,539 with a pass rate of 65.1%.
While years impacted by the pandemic saw totals plummet, neither 2023/24 nor extrapolation of provisional 2024/25 figures across a 12-month period will see annual test numbers match those reported via DVSA’s data up to and including 2019/20.
Such long-term decline will serve as further concern for the coach and bus industry. Although the acute shortage of drivers from 2021 onwards is said by some parties to have abated, recruitment and retention remains challenging for many operators.
The picture for PCV driving tests contrasts with that seen for large goods vehicles (LGVs), where after a steep decline during the early-2010s there was an immediate uplift post-pandemic.
In 2007/08, 70,766 LGV driving tests were taken. That figure plummeted to the mid-40,000s across the following financial years before recovering to consistently be over 70,000 ahead of the pandemic period.
Since then, test numbers for new LGV drivers peaked at almost 114,000 in 2022/23, with the most recent full financial year total sitting at 79,319. The latter equals an increase in LGV test numbers between 2007/08 and 2023/24 of 12.1% against a fall of 31.4% for PCV tests taken across the same period.
A boom in LGV test volumes coincided with a government and stakeholder campaign to promote careers in that sector, including funding and expansion of DVSA capacity to perform tests.
Additionally, a letter sent by parties including then-Transport Minister Baroness Vere invited lapsed LGV licence holders to return to that occupation.
It had an immediate impact, with LGV driving tests carried out in 2021/22 lifting to almost 96,000. By contrast, a mere 4,096 PCV tests were taken during that period.
While coach and bus has benefited from some changes to increase vocational driving test capacity, other steps have not come its way. Representative bodies have repeatedly sought an extension to PCV of the skills bootcamp approach offered in LGV, but there is no sign of that being heeded.
Although moves to relax the 50km, regular and special regular service restriction applied to the youngest PCV drivers are progressing, those proposals have been criticised for not going far enough by maintaining the regular and special regular service stipulation.
That will keep much coach work outside the scope of the planned change, with one operator having said in 2022 that any restrictions on PCV drivers aged 18 and 19 make recruitment and proper utilisation of those individuals difficult.
DVSA data also shows moderate uptake of the change introduced in late-2021 to permit off-road elements of vocational driving tests to be undertaken separately to on-road work. For PCV, 933 such off-road modules were taken in 2022/23. That fell to 721 in the following financial year and a provisional 295 in the first six months of 2024/25.
PCV driving test data published by DVSA can be found here. LGV driving test figures here.
