Whereas I see the whole situation as being caused by the industry's failure to comply with the criminal law, that being the law we fought for that obliges transport operators to move to accessible buses and coaches in steps by 2020. It is RRB providers and TOCs that have not complied with their criminal law obligations that are at fault.
I think it's quite unfair to blame the operators with this one. The fact is the laws regarding transport accessibility are rather poorly written and are greatly open to interpretation. You could ask 5 industry experts to clarify what the accessibility laws mean as are currently written, and you could get 5 different responses back. It is becoming clearer now that the industry-wide generalised interpretation has been the wrong one. To me the real people at fault are those who wrote the laws so open to interpretation to begin with, there should have been greater clarity from the outset as to what is in scope of the regulations and what is not. The industry is currently going through the same arguments with home to school services due to lack of clarity. The vagueness and open interpretation is failing passengers with disabilities.
In my opinion it is quite telling that the ORR has only sought this "provisional advice" to clarify the situation now in September 2019, when coaches used on rail replacement that were built new since 2001 should have been complying with PSVAR (Schedule 3 only for coaches new between 1st January 2001 and 31st December 2004, full schedules 1 and 3 for coaches since 1st January 2005). That is a potential 18 years where many PSV operators and rail replacement providers have been in breach of the law, and all because of how poorly written and open to interpretation it is. Why is it only being questioned now 18 years after the first new coaches should have been complying?
DVSA do from time to time conduct roadside checks at railway stations to ensure operators are complying with the law, which does include PSVAR compliance. They have seemingly never questioned the lack of PSVAR compliance on any of the vehicles used during any of their spot checks, have they been working to the same lack of clarity over what is in scope and what isn't?