Operating Aspects of
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PASSENGER TRANSPORT
COMMITTEE ON EXCLUSION OF COACHES FROM CENTRAL LONDON
FROM Monday until Thursday of last week the Committee of Inquiry into London Motor Coach Services held sittings in London to consider the use of central London by coaches and the restriction of picking-up points. The committee is under the chairmanship of Lord Amulree, accompanied by Sir Henry Maybury and Sir Hardman Lever. It has been ettablished to submit oa report to the Minister of Transport on general principles and is not an appeal tribunal.
The meeting on Monday of last week was held to permit interested Parties to enter representations for or against the proposal and to consider procedure. On the following day evidence was heard ty the committee, and the case of Green Line Coaches, Ltd., and associated companies was the first to be considered.
Mr. Frank Pick, managing director of the Underground group, gave evidence against the exclusion of coaches from London. Bus and outer-suburban coach. services should, he thought, be dealt with as a co-ordinated part, long
distance services being considered separately.
According to Mr. Pick, Green Line coaches carried, during a week in July last, 289,461 passengers, 65 per cent. being picked up or set down within five miles of Charing Cross and 50 per cent. within the central area now sought to be excluded. At least• half the passengers carried by the company's vehicles would have to change vehicles in order to complete the journey. Of the persons who travelled in the central area, 40 per cent, were carried at peak hours and there would be difficulty in finding transport for them if the coaches were to be stopped outside central London.
Mr. Pick considered that publicservice vehicles should be permitted to stop when required, unless there were good reasons to the contrary, but on the matter of suburban coach services he
was prepared to accept an average ofone stop per mile. He pointed out that in the first three months of 1931, Green Line coaches conveyed 2,313,000 passengers, whereas in the first three months of this year there were 3,136,000.
On Wednesday, Mr. Pick continued his evidence and was then crossexamined. He could not agree that central London was the most congested part of the Metropolis, and thought that routes away from the busiest streets should be arranged for coaches, instead of banning such vehicles. He admitted that newly electrified railways should be protected against unnecessary and wasteful competition.
Mr. Pick had no doubt that the Minister of -Transport had instructed the Metropolitan Commissioner on excluding coaches from the central area, leaving it to coach operators to prove their case. He intimated that if coaches were allowed to use central London, Green Line might consider allowing other operators to use the Poland Street station.