OPERATORS GRAVELY CONCERNED ABOUT 1932 LICENCES
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M.H.C.S.A. Members to Consider Appointing a Propaganda Organizer IN our issue for last week we referred, on page 114:, to a meeting held on Thursday, September 3rd, at Charing Cross Hotel, London, when
several operators, mostly members of the Motor Hirers' and Coach Services Association, discussed the possibility of taking more drastic action than has hitherto been taken to protect their interests under the administration of the Road Traffic Act, 1930. They appointed a deputation to attend a committee meeting of the M.H.C.S.A. last Tuesday, and the outcome is that it has been decided to hold a general meeting of members of the association so soon as possible to consider various emergency measures.
There is no doubt that something in the nature of a panic has seized the independent operators. Many of them feel that favouritism is being shown by the Traffic Commissioners towards the combine companies. As the result of bad .7eather, the poor economic condition of the whole country and restrictions upon their services resulting from the Act, seasonal operators and others doubtless have poor traffic figures to snow for their 1931 summer season. It is yet unknown what procedure the Commissioners are going to adopt when renewing licences granted early this
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year, but operators fear that their low traffic returns for 1931 will affect their chances of getting licences in 1932.
• At the general meeting which is to be held, one suggestion to be considered will be the appointment of a highly paid propaganda specialist to organize public work and stimulate the resistance of the whole body of operators and the public generally to the curtailment of road services and to impractical and hampering licence conditions.
In the meantime, the secretary of the M.H.C.S.A. has addressed a letter to the Ministry of Transport, suggesting that the new Minister, before taking up the reins of office, should arrange a conference of all the chairmen of Commissioners, as well as delegates from representative operators' organizations, to talk over the administration of the Act, also a separate confereuce to discuss particular problems of the London area. As an alternative, the letter suggests that the new Minister should receive a deputation from the 14I.H.C.S.A.
One of the points which they will no doubt wish to bring forward is the objection, in general terms, which the railway companies have been making to various licences, the contention being that the precise grounds for objection should be stated in writing at the time of lodging the objection. Another matter is the impracticability of appearances at public sittings in all areas traversed by proposed services, in order to obtain backings, even when passengers are not picked up or set down in the intermediate areas.
The imposition of a speed-limit condition to road-service licences is another sore point, for, as pointed out in this journal from the very first, it attaches two penalties to a single offence. The suspension or cancellation of a licence as a kind of punishment for an irregularity of operation is another anomaly. In the ease of an operator running coaches to the coast, for example, the punishment is felt more by the passengers he leaves stranded at the seaside (having paid their return fares) than by the operator himself, and the matter obviously needs more consideration in the general interests of the travelling public.
Then there is that contentious point as to whether period return tickets should be permitted on excursions and
tours. The attitude of M.H.C.S.A. members to this problem, as well as others, will probably be ascertained at the general meeting, the date of which we shall announce so soon as it is decided.