Membership

The Board is comprised of one Chair and a mixture of voting and non-voting members. The numbers and groups these members represent are detailed in the secondary legislation which established the Board.

The National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board (Scotland) Regulations 2023 require that the Board have at least ten but not more than fourteen voting members, and not more than three non-voting members. The regulations also require that the Board have at least five but not more than seven members which represent, in the view of Ministers, the range of operators of different modes. In practice, this requires similar numbers of voting members who represent the interests of passengers.

  • Chairperson (non-voting unless in event of a split vote)
  • Operators of different transport modes (voting)
  • Transport authorities, Passenger, and accessibility representatives (voting)
  • Board advisors (non-voting)

Operators of different transport modes include buses, trams, ferries, railways, and subway representatives. This is balanced with members who represent transport users, including Regional Transport Partnerships, Local Transport Partnerships, Transport Scotland with reference to the national concessionary scheme and broader public policy, and representatives for young people and those with accessibility requirements. The Board is supported by three Board Advisor members, who are non-voting technical experts. Current membership of NSTAB and parent body can be found in Annex B.

Changes to Membership

The Board was formed in 2023 following a standard public appointment exercise, which saw Scottish Ministers appoint one Chair, five representatives of transport modes, five representatives of passengers and three technical advisors. In early 2024 the original subway (Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) representative Neil Wylie retired from the Board, and was replaced by Michael Nimmo, also of SPT.

In September 2024, original bus representative Alex Hornby stepped down due to moving sector, leading to a new appointment process. During the interim period, Graeme Macfarlan of First Bus provided bus sector representation in an observer capacity as agreed by the Transport Scotland Operator Smart Steering Group (OSSG), a forum for knowledge sharing and collaboration between operators on smart and integrated ticketing.

Members of the board sitting at a table in a meeting room with laptops and papers
Figure 1: NSTAB Board meeting

Part of the 2024 recruitment process identified that given the scale and complexity of the bus sector compared to other sectors, it would be reasonable to support having more than one representative for bus as an ongoing arrangement. For example, while Scotland has a single tram operator and only 4 rail operators, there are over one hundred and thirty-six commercial bus operators active in Scotland. This makes it unlikely that any single individual would be able to fully represent the needs of the entire sector, within the time commitment for Board work.

Scottish Ministers have therefore appointed two bus sector representatives, Graeme Macfarlan of First Bus and Steven Chambers of Lothian Buses, who agreed to share a single vote to maintain the modal vote distribution on the board. It is likely that having permanent dual representation for the bus sector will form a recommendation to Scottish Ministers during 2025-26. The Board would like to thank Neil Wylie and Alex Hornby for their time on the Board, and to Graeme McFarlan for providing sector representation during the recruitment process.