11.This Part defines the key concepts used in the Act and sets out the general objectives to which the Welsh Ministers must have regard in exercising functions under the Act.
12.Section 1 defines a “local bus service” as a service for the carriage of passengers by road, at separate fares, using one or more public service vehicles, that has one or more embarkation or disembarkation points (defined in section 2) in Wales. In addition, to amount to a local bus service, each of the points at which passengers may disembark form the service must be less than 15 miles away from the previous embarkation point, when measured in a straight line, and every point on the route between the embarkation and disembarkation points must be less than 15 miles away from each of those points when measured in a straight line.
13.Where a service as a whole does not meet the requirements set out above but a part of it does meet those requirements, that part which does meet the requirements is to be treated as a local bus service for the purposes of the Act, except for section 5(1)(a) and the preparation of the Plan. (An example might be a long distance service between Cardiff and London that contains a few stops that happen to meet the definition of a local bus service due to their proximity: the part of the service that comprises those stops will be a local bus service for the purposes of the Act, but the Welsh Ministers will not need to consider whether those stops are a necessary element of the long distance service, for the purposes of determining which services are required under section 5(1)(a).)
14.Certain services are excluded from the definition of “local bus service”. These are services where every vehicle is used under a permit granted under section 19 of the 1985 Act (permits for public service vehicles used by educational and other bodies), services where every vehicle is used in circumstances in which the conditions set out in Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the 1981 Act are met, excursions or tours (as defined in the 1985 Act), and rail replacement services (as defined in section 1(4)(c) of the Act).
15.Section 3 defines “flexible local bus services” as local bus services which are so flexible that it is not practicable to identify their routes for the purposes of the Plan. “Standard local bus services” are all other local bus services. (This distinction reflects the fact that some local bus services in Wales may not have fixed routes, and that the system established by the Act needs to work for services of this type.)
16.Section 4 sets out general objectives to which the Welsh Ministers must have regard when exercising any function under the Act. The objectives are not written in any order of importance, and each objective is important to delivery.
Commentary on Sections Part 1 – Key Concepts and General Objectives