The Minister of State for Transport, Chris Heaton-Harris, has responded to Paul Plummer, Chief Executive, Rail Delivery Group, with regards to the extension of non-accessible period for rail replacement vehicles. 

The letter confirms that government is allowing applications to extend the period of non-accessibility compliance for buses and coaches performing rail replacement duties.

The period of potential exemption is until 31st December 2020 subject to the conditions that:

• train operating companies must source and use compliant vehicles wherever possible in the first instance, only using non-complaint vehicles that has been granted a special authorisation when other options have been exhausted
• when no compliant vehicle is available train operating companies must provide alternative accessible transport for disabled passengers which offers the same levels of service as those for non-disabled passengers with no detriment to those passengers
• arrangements must be made in advance during planned engineering works to ensure alternative accessible transport is readily available

This exemption supersedes the previously released period of 1 February to 30 April 2020. This extension has been given to potentially explore and devise a more ambitious timeline for providing rail replacement services that are fully compliant with current public service vehicles accessibility regulations.