The recent announcement by the Department for Transport (DfT) that it plans to call for evidence and feedback from operators ahead of the review of PSVAR was a welcome move.
Certainly, it is no exaggeration to say that the number of home-to-school coaches that would be affected by a mandatory requirement for such vehicles to be PSVAR compliant would be considerable.
Many operators deploy a business model that involves coaches being removed from front line touring and private hire work and cascaded onto school duties for the latter part of their lifecycle. A cursory glance at the school transport vehicles in use around my operating area reveals coaches from the late 1990s still in use, as well as a small number of fairly modern ex-express service coaches that are PSVAR compliant, plus everything else in between.
It is the ‘everything else in between’ collection that are most in danger of becoming useless overnight – albeit still with a fair book value attached to them as assets – if every school transport vehicle was required to be PSVAR compliant.
One operator in particular that I observe most days runs a very well presented fleet of school transport vehicles, most of which are 12-18 years old. Very few are PSVAR compliant and of those that are, I suspect that not many ever require deployment of the lift. That majority of the operator in question’s fleet would be vastly devalued overnight if a hard cut-off for the operation of non-compliant coaches was put into place any time soon.
Notwithstanding that, the school grounds are almost certainly entirely inappropriate for the deployment of a lift, with no kerb infrastructure in place at the coach bays to accommodate a wheelchair user disembarking from or boarding a coach.
I wholeheartedly agree that where a specific need for a PSVAR compliant vehicle is known, schools and local authorities (LAs) should have the right to request one from an operator with a decent amount of notice. However, to mandate that every in-scope school transport coach should be PSVAR compliant in the coming three years or so represents a hurdle that many will find hard to overcome.
The overall cost to LAs of procuring school transport would rise significantly too, as PSVAR compliant vehicles demand a premium over their non-compliant alternatives. If a PSVAR compliant asset needs to be purchased and depreciated over five years, say, then that represents a significant daily depreciation to be factored into a tender when compared to a £15,000 non-compliant coach.
LA budgets will need to increase to allow for this uplift, which the operator must pass on. The costs of maintaining these newer coaches are also higher, given that the technology within them is more complex and notwithstanding the upkeep of the often-complex lift mechanism.
It is noticeable that various LAs place different levels of emphasis on PSVAR compliant coaches being considered for school transport tenders. Some ask for two prices (PSVAR and non-PSVAR). Others continue to make no reference to PSVAR or vehicle age at all, and simply specify the seating capacity required. They subsequently award the contract to the cheapest bidder, irrespective of what vehicle is operated.
That method does rather encourage the problem to be simply ‘kicked down the road’, as it maintains a significant number of non-compliant coaches being used in the medium term, with a potential cliff edge at some point in the future.
I encourage all operators to respect to the various requests for feedback from DfT.
View the PSVAR review call for evidence document here. Responses close at 2345hrs on 4 September.
