The letter arrives from the Office of the Traffic Commissioner and the room goes quiet: you are being called to a public inquiry. For most operators this is the single most serious event in the life of their O-licence - the point where the regulator stops writing letters and starts deciding whether your business keeps its authority to operate. GOV.UK publishes both a short guide for those called and a full guide to public inquiries, and together they demystify a process that too many operators walk into blind.
The short guide lists the triggers. You may have to attend if someone has objected to your application for a licence or a change to it; if you have not kept to the conditions of your licence - the example given is using more vehicles than permitted; if there are environmental concerns about a goods vehicle operating centre on your licence; or if your conduct has come into question, with the pointed example of being caught using a mobile phone while driving.
The fuller guide adds the statutory machinery. A traffic commissioner may call an inquiry to clarify information raising concerns - and must hold one if considering regulatory action against an existing licence when the operator requests a hearing. The same applies when a transport manager’s good repute or professional competence is under consideration and a hearing is requested.
For new applications, statutory objectors - local authorities, planning authorities, the police, and certain trade associations and unions - can object on grounds of repute or fitness, financial standing, maintenance and drivers’ hours arrangements, professional competence, and the environmental suitability of the operating centre.
The clock is fixed by licence type. You will get a minimum of 28 days’ notice if the inquiry concerns a transport manager, 21 days for a new or existing goods operator licence, and 14 days for a passenger operator’s licence. Rescheduling is not a formality: the guide says you cannot ask for the date to be changed unless you have a good reason that can be backed up - the example is a pre-booked holiday, with evidence required.
Use the notice window properly. This is when records get pulled together, maintenance files audited, and professional advice taken. An operator who spends three weeks hoping it will go away has spent their only real asset.
A public inquiry is formal but it is not a criminal court. Evidence is not given under oath - yet witnesses are required to tell the truth at all times, and the consequences of failing to are severe: a finding that the person is not of good repute or fit to hold a licence or act as a transport manager, reduced weight given to their evidence, and potentially referral to the police with criminal charges to follow.
The guide makes one point operators consistently miss: the commissioner is concerned with your position at the date of the inquiry, not the position when the problems occurred. That is an opening, not a loophole. If your maintenance systems were broken six months ago, the inquiry is your chance to show they are fixed now - with evidence. The guide says it directly: one way of showing you meet the conditions and undertakings on your licence is to bring the records requested in the calling letter to the hearing. The operator who walks in with complete, credible records and a reformed system has something to stand on. The operator with excuses does not.
The guide frames the decision simply: if the commissioner finds that the requirements are not met, they may refuse an application, take action against the licence, or act against your repute or professional competence as a transport manager. Action against the licence includes suspension and revocation - the guide names both when explaining that a commissioner can delay their effect while an appeal is heard. During the hearing the commissioner may ask directly what the impact on your business would be if action were taken against the licence, so have an honest answer ready. For transport managers the exposure is personal: the guide notes a commissioner can order rehabilitative measures, including re-sitting the CPC examination, and a repute finding follows a manager between employers.
Good repute and fitness get their own treatment in the guide. Holders of standard licences and transport managers must be of good repute; restricted goods licence holders must be fit to hold a licence. Convictions for road transport offences and other serious offences can mean mandatory loss of repute. And the Senior Traffic Commissioner’s Statutory Guidance and Directions - covering fitness and good repute, finance, transport managers, operating centres, and decision-making principles - are the framework the commissioner works from.
Decisions can be appealed to the Upper Tribunal. The guide notes that commissioners have discretion to direct that certain decisions - usually suspension or revocation - do not take effect until an appeal is lodged and dealt with. That stay can be the difference between a business that survives its appeal and one that folds while waiting for it.
If the letter arrives: read the calling letter line by line - it defines the battleground. Diarise the notice period and assemble every record it requests. Fix what is broken and document the fix, because the inquiry judges today, not history. Take professional advice - a transport solicitor or consultant who does inquiries weekly is worth the fee. And attend: failing to appear lets the commissioner decide on the material they have, which is rarely the version that helps you.
The best public inquiry strategy, of course, is the one that prevents it: maintenance records that would survive inspection, drivers’ hours compliance that is real rather than filed, and a licence whose details match the business actually being run. Commissioners call inquiries when the paperwork on file and the reality on the road have drifted apart. Keep them together and the letter never comes.