Mersey operators lose High Court fares claim
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• Two Merseyside bus operators have lost their High Court claim that the local passenger transport authority's maximum fares policy is illegal.
Justice Mann rejected claims by Crosville Motor Services and North Western Road Car that the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority had breached its duty under the Transport Act, 1968 not to inhibit competition.
Justice Mann defined "public transport requirements" as the requirements of the public to travel and pay a fare which it could reasonably afford. He said the requirements must, in part, depend on local social conditions. It was the PTA's responsibility to assess the requirements and its decision could only be challenged on the grounds of irrationality, which was not the charge in the present case.
He said that while a particular subsidy level was capable of inhibiting competition, whether it did so was dependent on the circumstances of particular routes — and the case had not been argued in relation to particular routes.
Such routes were submitted to tender to public passenger transport operators who agreed not to exceed the maximum fare scale — which included half price for children — but might propose lower fares. They were reimbursed out of public funds if the routes ran at a loss.
The subsidised service was introduced against a background of a community with a high dependence on public transport. Car ownership was low, many families lived in out lying housing estates and high unemployment meant there existed a low ability to pay commercial fares.
In formulating its fares policy it was the PTA's view that public transport on Merseyside should continue to play a part in the regeneration of the area.