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Scots' dial-a-bus application fails
Page 26
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• Ben Thompson Cabs Ltd of East Kilbride has failed in its "dial-a-bus" application to the Scottish Traffic Commissioners which was first heard in April, then at East Kilbride over two days in May and finally at Glasgow last week. Central SMT Co Ltq. made a late application in January for two services into the central areas of the new town where it was the policy of East Kilbride Development Corporation to exclude passenger transport Thompson Cabs, a radio-cab operating company, and an association of a substantial number of cab owners, proposed to run the first Scottish dial-a-bus service, operating within a specified area of the new town, answering calls by going directly to the customer's door, and operating by minibus.
It was proposed to link up with railway services at East Kilbride railway station and to go on to the town shopping centre.
British Rail welcomed the proposal.
Central SMT, as the established operator of stage services, objected, contending that the group of taxi operators working with Ben Thompson Cabs Ltd was seeking to monopolize the East Kilbride taxi trade and would abstract traffic from them.
The Commissioners said that they were told a number of organizations were supporting the application of Thompson but only the applicant and the principal officer of the planning department of the Development Corporation gave evidence. It was surprising that no members of the public had been called. East Kilbride Town Council favoured this application rather than that of SMT but again there was no evidence from East Kilbride Town Council.
The essential point was, the Commissioners said, that this was a new and experimental service at a time when there was interest in different. methods of public transport. There could be advantages in this experiment but the Commissioners had grave doubts about its viability.
While a service might generate new traffic it was pretty certain there would be abstraction from the buses and even the taxis might be affected. The Commissioners could not measure the degree of abstraction but the nearer this enterprise came to viability the greater would be the abstraction.
While such a service might generate new Central SMT applications they said that these came from the established operator; the changes aroposed would reduce the distance of travel for some people and cut out some hills. They decided they could not grant all three applications and must choose either Ben Thompson Cabs Ltd or the two Central applications. They decided to reject the Ben Thompson application and grant the Central.