1) Alastair Peoples, chief executive, Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA)
The merger of the DSA and Vosa into one single agency, due for completion by 1 April 2014, is creating a 4,600-strong organisation, with annual turnover of £400m and responsibility for setting, testing and enforcing driver and vehicle standards in Great Britain.
The man at the helm of this new agency is Alastair Peoples, formerly Vosa chief executive since August 2009, and he will be responsible for streamlining the two most important regulatory bodies that road transport operators deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Although DSA and Vosa both sat under the DfT, the two organisations are culturally very different, as Peoples revealed in an interview with Commercial Motor in October, so a lot of work is needed to bring the two together. On top of that the industry wants a regulator that delivers a better service and better value for money. Peoples has the power to do just that, but he also has the power to make a mess of it too. Either way there will be long term consequences for all in the industry.
All eyes will be on Peoples in 2014 to see how he shapes the new agency and whether it delivers all the promised improved service and efficiencies for commercial operators.
