/limo° battle starts...
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BATTLE over Strathclyde ; plans to operate special ces for the disabled — Re: Microbus services feeding V Metroliner coach — ad in Glasgow last week is expected to continue in ary.
PTE wants to operate Reit Trafic Microbuses, :ially equipped for the led, in the Paisley and k areas feeding the Metroservice between Paisley ilasgow.
s opposed by the Scottish group, Graham's Bus SerMcGills Bus Service, the .w Taxi Owners' Associathe Glasgow Hackney Car s Trade Association and the nal Federation of Taxi Cab -lough the objectors do not se in principle the operarf services for the disabled, are particularly concerned t plans to use the vehicles' ime to ply for hire.
the first day of the hearing, thjectors argued that the ish Traffic Commissioners not deal with the applicais it was not for stage carservices. There were no set stage routes or timetables, and proposals to offer group fares did not comply with fares regulatiOns in the 1981 Public Passenger Vehicles Act.
In addition the Act required the Commissioners to listen to any objection, but objections could not be formulated because the routes were not known and consequently the objectors did not know to what they were objecting.
Commissioners' chairman Hugh McNamara indicated that they felt that they had jurisdic tion to deal with the applications, but his conviction that the objectors had a valid point over the group fares led the PTE to drop that part of the proposals.
Hamish Taylor, the PTE's controller of integrated operation, said that the PTE was trying to achieve a better integrated service for able-bodied and .disabled people.
The Microbuses' main priority would be to link with the Metroliner, and passengers would be collected by booking by lpm on the day before the journey.
If the buses were not in use for connections with the Metroliner, disabled people would be able to book journeys to anywhere within the operating areas. At other times the vehicles would be free to tour the area on a hire and ride basis.