In your original enquiry you noted that there were different schools of thought on the application of the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR) to vehicles providing rail replacement services, and asked for the Department's view. As usual I must be clear that I cannot provide you with legal advice and that you may wish to seek this for yourself before acting on any information provided.
Unfortunately the answer to your question is not as clear cut as you might have hoped, and the application of PSVAR to individual vehicles will depend upon the nature of the service they provide.
You rightly note that PSVAR provides a definition of "scheduled services" as:
"...a service, using one or more public service vehicles, for the carriage of passengers at separate fares -
(a) along specified routes,
(b) at specified times, and
(c) with passengers being taken up and set down at pre-determined stopping points, but does not include a tour service..."
PSVAR also provides a list of categories of service which should not be considered to be "scheduled services". This does not include rail replacement services.
As such, from a policy perspective, it is our view that PSVAR is likely to apply to rail replacement services meeting the above criteria. Again, whilst it is ultatimely for the Courts to interpret the legislation, we would consider that a fare has been paid for a journey even if it has been paid to a Train Operating Company rather than the operator of the rail replacement service.
All that said, there may be circumstances in which a rail replacement service does not meet all of the above criteria or indeed, where the criteria are met but the service is exempt from needing to comply with PSVAR on account of it being older than twenty years and being used for relevant services on fewer than twenty days in each calendar year. This exemption was included in PSVAR to enable operators to maintain services if compliant vehicles were temporarily unavailable however it is our understanding that it may sometimes be used for rail replacement services.
Therefore, in order to determine whether the service you referred to must comply with PSVAR you will need to identify whether it meets the criteria to be considered a local or scheduled service in its specific circumstances, and whether the twenty day exemption applies.
As I am sure you are aware it is a standard condition of train operators' Disabled People's Protection Policies (DPPPs) that alternative accessible transport will be provided to enabled disabled passengers to complete their journey during times of disruption. The Office of Rail and Road says:
"Train operators must provide, without extra charge, an appropriate alternative accessible service to take disabled passengers to the nearest or most convenient accessible station from where they can continue their journey.
This duty applies where:
• the station is inaccessible
• where, for whatever reason, substitute transport is provided to replace rail services (eg because of planned engineering works), and this alternative transport is inaccessible to disabled passengers
• where there is disruption to services at short notice that, for whatever reason, makes services inaccessible to disabled passengers"
Whilst it seems reasonable that disabled passengers should expect to be able to use the same transport as other passengers, without the disruption and delay of waiting for alternatives, this hopefully provides a backstop where PSVAR compliant services are not available.
I am sorry that I cannot provide a more definitive view but hope that it helps to answer your question.