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For MPTA read APTO
Page 27
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• • Delegates to the Municipal Passenger Transport Association's annual conference at Eastbourne, August 24 to 28, will be told that the association is to change its name and structure, a move resulting from the major alterations in public transport organization following the 1968 Transport Act. The name of the new body will be the Association of Passenger Transport Operators (APTO).
It is understood that three of the four Passenger Transport Authorities, through their PTEs, will become full members, but that the West Midlands PTE has decided not to join. (All four PTEs have opted for membership of the Public Road Transport Association—formerly the PTA.) London Transport, too, will join the APTO but at present full membership is in doubt. The charge for full, rather than associate, membership will be lOs per bus and this would face the LTE with an annual bill of around £3000 instead of the present £200.
Another change will be in the governing body. Instead of a president and vice-president elected from the membership, APTO is intended to have a figurehead president chosen from public life. The executive organization will be headed by a chairman and vice-chairman.
Joint membership of PRTA and APTO by three out of four PTEs, London Transport and many municipalities again prompts the suggestion that there should now be a single association representing the whole of road passenger transport. Very many busmen would support this view. The main stumbling block appears to be the PRTA's understandable refusal to accept lay representatives instead of practising bus managers, while transport committee chairmen value their participation in the MPTA's affairs.