Traffic Commissioners and Public Inquiries: What Operators Need to Know

Traffic Commissioners are independent regulators, one for each Traffic Area in Great Britain, responsible for licensing and regulating operators of heavy goods vehicles and public service vehicles, and for regulating the conduct of professional drivers. They act on evidence submitted by DVSA, the police and other agencies, as well as on the operator's own licence history.

A Public Inquiry is typically called following a significant compliance failure or a pattern of them — a serious maintenance failure, a poor MOT/annual test or prohibition history, drivers' hours infringements, a conviction, or a failure to notify the Traffic Commissioner of a material change (address, operating centre, finances, or the Transport Manager). It can consider the operator's licence and, separately, an individual Transport Manager's or driver's good repute.

Outcomes range from no action, through formal warnings and undertakings, to curtailment, suspension or revocation of the licence — and, for a Transport Manager, disqualification from acting as a Transport Manager, which affects every licence they're named on.

Beyond the specific incident that triggered the inquiry, the Commissioner is assessing whether the systems behind the operation are genuinely sound — is the Transport Manager exercising continuous and effective control, or were they named on paper only? Is there a real system for catching and correcting problems, or did this one only surface because DVSA found it?

The strongest evidence an operator can bring to a Public Inquiry is a demonstrable, dated system: risk assessments, training records, maintenance records, drivers' hours analysis, and evidence that when something was found wrong, it was corrected and the correction is on file — not just an assurance that things have improved.