Terms of reference
The purpose and objectives of the Traffic Commissioners.
The Traffic Commissioners’ (TCs) shared vision is to champion safe, fair and reliable passenger and goods transport.
They achieve this by ensuring licensed operators comply with undertakings that are made upon grant of a licence, as well as the mandatory requirements for holding a licence. This work is driven by their commitment to managing risks to road safety, protecting fair competition and promoting the running of punctual and reliable registered local bus services.
In the performance of their duties, traffic commissioners seek to act in accordance with the standards expected of those in public life. The following values reflect accepted principles of better regulation and inform the way in which commissioners seek to approach their work and those they work with:
- proportionality – action taken by commissioners must be proportionate to the shortcomings revealed in evidence brought to them
- accountability – commissioners will give reasons for their decisions
- consistency – commissioners are committed to consistency in their approach to decision making
- transparency – commissioners believe it is important that the transport industry, their representatives and the public understand their role and their work and welcome the opportunity to engage in dialogue with those who have an interest in what they do;
- targeting – commissioners will focus their attention on those who cannot, or choose not to, run their businesses properly, and on those individual drivers who fall short in their conduct
TCs seek a licensing system where applications for licences and regulatory cases are resolved in a way which is fair, timely, open and proportionate. This means that those taking decisions do so on soundly-based evidence and with proper regard to the needs of those affected, where people are helped to understand how the process works and the cost of effective administration takes account of the constitutional position.