Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003

Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003^[1]
Act of Parliament
	Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make provision about railways, including tramways; to make provision about transport safety; and for connected purposes.
Citation	2003 c. 20
Dates
Royal assent	10 July 2003
Other legislation
Amended by	Railways Act 2005; Police and Justice Act 2006; Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011; Deregulation Act 2015; Policing and Crime Act 2017;
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 (c. 20) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Purposes of the act

The purposes of the act^[2] include:-

the creation of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch
the replacement of the Rail Regulator by a Regulatory Board, the Office of Rail Regulation.
the creation of a police authority for the British Transport Police (BTP)
allowing the BTP to recruit police community support officers (PCSO) under the Police Reform Act 2002 which previously only extended to territorial police forces
giving the BTP "statutory authority over the railway"
the introduction of alcohol limits on the crews of water-borne vessels and aircraft in line with those already existing for railway staff
other miscellaneous matters affecting railway, air and road transport

The Act extends to the whole United Kingdom but with exceptions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Schedule 8^[3] makes a number of amendments to other Acts but does not repeal any Acts entirely.