Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 26 November 2015 to Question 16942, for what reason his Department does not publish statistics on the number of buses in England that are fitted with audio-visual systems; and whether the Buses Bill will make provision to do so.

Andrew Jones

The Department’s annual survey of local bus operators was amended in 2013/14 to include a question on the number of buses providing audio/visual information.

In line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, statistics should be produced to a level of quality that meets users’ need. To date, the statistics relating to this question have not been published by the Department because of concerns about the robustness of the data.

The Department, as part of it’s statistical quality management process, will take steps to improve the quality of the audio/visual data. Once these quality concerns are met so that what is produced does not risk misleading users, the Department will look to publish the information, in line with the majority of data collected through the local bus survey.

The Government, therefore, does not consider it necessary to legislate on this issue through the Bus Services Bill.