Transport Act 1978

County transport planning (England and Wales)

Passenger transport policies in county areas

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County public transport plans

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• (1) Every non-metropolitan county council shall—

• (a) not later than 31st March 1979, prepare and publish a public passenger transport plan for the succeeding period of 5 years ; and

• (b) revise and re-publish the plan every 12 months (which means not later than 31st March in each year after 1979), relating its contents always to the next 5 years after re-publication.

• (2) The plan shall contain—

• (a) a review of the county's needs, and the needs of communities comprised in it, in respect of public passenger transport services, and the extent to which those needs are met by existing services (this review to be accompanied by an account of the criteria applied to determine need);

• (b) a description of—

• (i) the council's policies and objectives for public passenger transport, and the services and facilities they consider to be needed by the county; and

• (ii) the measures proposed for securing them in the short, and also in the longer, term ;

• (c) estimates of the financial resources required for the realisation of those policies and objectives, with proposals for obtaining such resources ; and

• (d) an account of how far forecasts in earlier plans have been, and are being, realised as regards the availability and use of such resources.

• (3) When preparing or revising the plan, and when considering from time to time the way in which they are to discharge their responsibilities under section 1 above, the council shall enter into consultations with—

• (a) public passenger transport service operators in the county, or their representatives;

• (b) district councils in the county ; and

• (c) the following, if they or their areas may be affected by the policies described in the plan—

• (i) other county councils,

• (ii) the Greater London Council, and

• (iii) joint planning boards set up under section 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971.

• (4) To all those mentioned in paragraphs (a) to (c) of subsection (3), and also to—

• (a) the county's parish and (in Wales) community councils ; and

• (b) trade unions, transport user organisations and others appearing to the county council to be especially concerned with public passenger transport matters,

there shall be afforded an opportunity of commenting on a preliminary draft of the plan, and of making representations with respect to its contents.

• (5) Particulars shall be given in the plan of the county council's consultations entered into in compliance with subsection (3) and of the consideration which has been given to views expressed in the consultations.

• (6) When the plan or revised plan has been published, the county council shall cause it to be made available for inspection (at all reasonable hours)—

• (a) at the council offices; and

• (b) at the offices of each of the district councils in the county; and

• (c) at such other places as are considered suitable, having regard to the convenience of members of the public.

• (7) The council shall give notice, by such means as they think expedient for bringing it to the attention of the public, about where the plans can be inspected, and as to the way in which copies of the plan (and if practicable, parts of it) can be purchased or otherwise obtained.

Agreements with operators

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• (1) A non-metropolitan county council shall from time to time, with a view to implementation of their public passenger transport plan, enter into agreements with persons carrying on public passenger transport undertakings wholly or partly in the county for the provision or retention and financing of services and facilities which are required by the plan but would not, apart from such agreements, be available.

• (2) The council may enter into similar agreements with persons within section 1(5) (a) and (6) above.

• (3) Agreements under subsection (1) above shall be made so as to remain in force for a period of 3 years, except in cases where, having regard to the nature of the services and facilities to be provided, a longer or shorter period is determined by the parties to be expedient.

• (4) Whenever the public passenger transport plan is published or re-published, it shall include particulars of such agreements made by the council as are referred to in subsections (1) and (2) above and are then in force or to be in force during the period of 12 months immediately following.

• (5) When preparing or revising their plan and deciding whether any, and if so what, agreements should be made under this section, the council may require any of the persons referred to in section 1(5) above to furnish such information concerning their services (including the cost of providing them) as is reasonably required by the council for those purposes; and—

• (a) the information shall be formulated in such a manner as may be specified in the council's requirement; and

• (b) the council shall, when framing the requirement, have regard to any directions given by the Secretary of State to county councils about the form and content of the information which ought to be obtained by them from persons qualifying for grant under section 1(5).

• (6) Any requirement under subsection (5) above shall be complied with by the persons to whom it is addressed, subject to the council giving, and complying with, such written undertakings of confidentiality as may be requested by those persons as a condition of the information being furnished; but nothing in subsection (4) or (5) above requires or authorises the council to include anything in their plan whose disclosure may adversely affect the business interests or commercial security of any person.

Concessionary fare schemes

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• (1) All those county councils who have under this Act to prepare and publish an annual public passenger transport plan shall include in the plan, whenever it is published or re-published, the following matters relating to travel concession schemes (meaning schemes for the reduction or waiver of fares or charges on public passenger transport services in favour of special categories of persons).

• (2) The matters to be included in the plan are—

• (a) an account of what (if any) travel concession schemes are operative in the county or planned for early introduction, being schemes which are wholly or partly financed, or the subject of financial contribution, by the council themselves or by any of the district councils in the county;

• (b) the nature and extent of the concessions available under those schemes;

• (c) proposals for introducing new travel concession schemes such as are mentioned in paragraph (a) above, or for extending or improving existing schemes; and

• (d) the reasons why (if it be the case) in any part of the county either no such schemes are operative or existing schemes are inadequate.

Public service vehicle licensing

Community bus services

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Use of community bus for contract work

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Car-sharing for social and other purposes

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Road service licences and permits

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Road traffic regulation

Lorries

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• (1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sections 1, 2 and 7 of the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 shall be amended as shown in Schedule 3 to this Act (the amendments being to extend powers of inspection and control of vehicles by means of spot checks for mechanical defect or overload and restrictions on further use of a vehicle found in breach of the relevant Acts and regulations).

• (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Drivers' hours (EEC Rules)

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In section 96 of the 1968 Act (restrictions on drivers’ hours), after subsection (11A) (added by the ) European Communities Act 1972, with a view to penalising contraventions of the applicable Community rules), there shall be inserted—

(11B) But a person shall not be liable to be convicted under subsection (11A) if— (a) he proves the matters specified in paragraph (i) of subsection (11); or (b) being charged as the offender’s employer or a person to whose orders the offender was subject, he proves the matters specified in paragraph (ii) of that subsection.

Control of off-street parking

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Bicycles

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The powers of any authority under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 to provide parking places shall extend to providing, in roads and elsewhere, stands and racks for bicycles.

Waterway transport and railways

National policy for inland waterway transport

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It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to promote a national policy for the use of inland waterways for commercial transport.

British Rail public service obligations

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Transfer of controlling interest in Freightliners Limited

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• (1) On the appointed day there shall be transferred to, and vested in, the British Railways Board all those securities (within the meaning of the 1968 Act) of Freightliners Limited which immediately before that day are vested in the National Freight Corporation.

• (2) On that day—

• (a) any liabilities of N.F.C. under guarantees given by them in respect of obligations of Freightliners Limited shall be transferred to, and become liabilities of, that Board; and

• (b) the rights and liabilities of N.F.C. under contracts of employment with persons employed by them wholly or mainly in connection with the undertaking of Freightliners Limited shall be transferred to, and become rights and liabilities of, the Board.

• (3) The following provisions of the 1968 Act—

• (a) section 135(1) (regulations as to compensation of employees); and

• (b) Schedule 4 (supplementary provisions about transfers of property etc.),

and also any regulations made under section 135(1) of the 1968 Act before the coming into force of this section, apply as if the transfers effected by subsections (1) and (2) above were transfers under section 8(4) of that Act (the appointed day counting as the “first material date” for the purposes of the British Transport (Compensation to Employees) Regulations 1970, instead of the date shown in the second column of Schedule 1 to the Regulations).

• (4) Section 136(2) and (4) of the 1968 Act (transfers in connection with pension schemes and preservation of pension rights) apply in the same way; and for the purposes of section 136(4)(c), Freightliners Limited is to be treated (despite section 51(5) of that Act, which made it a joint subsidiary both of the British Railways Board and N.F.C.) as having become a subsidiary of the British Railways Board only on the appointed day.

• (5) The 1968 Act shall be amended as follows—

• (a) in section 7(4)(b) (restriction on alteration of proportion of interests in Freightliners Limited by means of a scheme), for the words from the beginning to “entitled in” substitute “for transferring any intreest in securities of”;

• (b) in section 42(3) (power of Secretary of State to vary amount of commencing capital debt of British Railways Board), for the words “specified in subsection (2)(b) of this section” onwards substitute “of the commencing capital debt of the Board as determined by or under any enactment for the time being in force, where that appears to him expedient to take account of any transfer of property, rights or liabilities under section 7(5) or (6) or 8(4) of this Act”; and

• (c) in paragraph 3 of Schedule 2 (power of Secretary of State to vary commencing capital debt of N.F.C. etc.), for the words from “where that appears” to “of this Act; or” substitute “or, in the case of the Freight Corporation, its commencing capital debt as determined by or under any enactment for the time being in force, where that appears to him expedient to take account”.

• (6) It shall be within the powers of the British Railways Board—

• (a) where it appears to them expedient with a view only to achieving the more productive use of road vehicles predominantly used for the carriage of containers which have been or are to be carried by rail, to use such vehicles for any carriage of containers; and

• (b) where they have entered into a contract for the carriage of containers or goods in containers (with or without provisions in the contract specifying whether the carriage is to be by road or by rail), and the contract is to be performed predominantly by rail carriage, to use any road vehicles in partial discharge of their obligations under the contract;

and “containers” means high capacity containers of a kind capable of being carried by freightliner rail vehicles.

• (7) The annual report made by the Board under section 4 of the Railways Act 1974 shall include, in addition to the matters there mentioned, such information about the Board’s exercise of their powers under subsection (6) above as may be called for by the Secretary of State.

• (8) In this section “the appointed day” means the day appointed under section 24(1) below for the coming into force of this section.

Amendment of Railways Act 1974 s. 8

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National Freight Corporation (finance)

Reduction of capital debt

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Capital grants

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• (1) The Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, out of money provided by Parliament make grants to the National Freight Corporation in respect of any expenditure of a capital nature incurred or to be incurred during the period 1st July 1978 to 31st December 1981 by National Carriers Limited or any of its subsidiaries.

• (2) Any grants under this section shall be made on such terms and conditions as the Secretary of State may with the approval of the Treasury determine; and the amounts of the grants shall be determined so that—

• (a) the amount for the year 1980 is less than that for the year 1979, and the amount for the year 1981 is less than that for the year 1980; and

• (b) the aggregate amount of the grants does not exceed £15 million.

Funding of pension obligations

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Provisions supplementary to s. 19

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• (1) In section 19 above and this section—

• " the appointed day " means a day appointed for the purposes of that section and this section by an order made by the Secretary of State ;etary of State with the consent of the Treasury;

• " prescribed " means prescribed by an order made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury;

• " pension " and " pension scheme " mean the same as in the 1962 Act and " relevant pension scheme" means— a pension scheme in relation to which rights, liabilities and functions were conferred or imposed on N.F.C., N.C.L., or Freightliners Limited by an instrument made under or by virtue of any provision of the 1962 Act; or a pension scheme established by N.F.C, N.C.L., or Freightliners Limited for the provision of pensions for or in respect of persons who are or have at any time been employed by any of those bodies;

and a reference to N.C.L. or to Freightliners Limited shall be read as including a reference to its subsidiaries.

• (2) Where at any time, whether before or after the appointed day, N.F.C., N.C.L., or Freightliners Limited make payments in respect of pensions payable under a prescribed pension scheme or increases in such pensions, the body making the payments shall be treated for the purposes of section 19 as being under an obligation at that time to make those payments.

• (3) The funding of an obligation under section 19 shall not discharge the obligation so far as it is one to pay pensions or increases of pensions under the relevant pension scheme owed to the person to whom pensions or increases of pensions are or may become payable under the scheme or is an obligation to secure the payment of those pensions or increases.

• (4) If the persons administering a prescribed pension scheme have no power to amend the scheme apart from this subsection, they may amend it by instrument in writing for the purpose of bringing it into conformity with any provision of section 19 or this section, or any order under either section; and the power of amending any such scheme apart from this subsection may for that purpose be exercised without regard to any limitations on the exercise of the power and without compliance with any procedural provisions applicable to its exercise.

• (5) Where it appears to N.F.C. that there is a doubt as to who are the persons administering a pension scheme, N.F.C. may by instrument in writing specify the persons who are to be treated for the purposes of section 19 and this section as the persons administering it.

• (6) Where any obligation of N.F.C., N.C.L. or Freightliners Limited is funded under section 19, or any obligation of the British Railways Board is funded under section 5 of the Railways Act 1974—

• (a) any right of N.F.C., N.C.L. or Freightliners Limited to be indemnified by B.R. in respect of the funded obligation or part of it; or

• (b) any right of B.R. to be so indemnified by N.F.C., N.C.L. or Freightliners Limited,

shall be extinguished in proportion to the funding of the obligation.

• (7) For the purposes of section 19(3) above and section 5(2) of the Railways Act 1974 (equivalent provision as to British Rail pension schemes), a scheme shall not be taken to be amended by virtue only of the transfer effected by section 15(1) above or by any provision made by virtue of section 15(3) in consequence of the transfer.

• (8) Any power to make an order conferred by section 19 or this section shall be exercisable by statutory instrument; and any such instrument (other than one containing an order made by virtue of section 19(5)(a) or one appointing a day for the purposes of section 19 and this section) shall be subject to annulment by a resolution of the House of Commons.

• (9) An order under section 19 or this section may by varied or revoked by a subsequent order so made, but no order shall be made under section 19(4) after the end of 1979, except a varying or revoking order under that subsection.

Travel concessions for transferred employees

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