Objectors Must Increase Fares in Line with Applicants
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AF.TER granting an increase in excursions and tours fares to 10 Shropshire operators last week, to which H. Brown and Sons objected, Mr. 1. Else, chairman of the West Midland Traffic Commissioners, announced that statutory notice would be issued on Brown and Sons to increase their fares in accordance with the grant and so bring them into line with other operators in the area.
Part way through their evidence Brown and Sons withdrew their objections, but still maintained that their case was valid. Appearing on their behalf, Mr. D. Skelding said his clients would object to the decision to make them increase their fares and would appeal if necessary.
Members of the Shropshire Omnibus. Association and Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Co. Ltd. applied for an increase on basic Sunday to Friday fares of an average of about five per cent. They also asked for Saturdays to be •transferred • to a special schedule covering Whit Monday and August Bank Holiday. It was sought to increase present fares in this category by 20 per cent for those up to 10s. and by 10 per cent over 10s. Although they were in agreement with a fares increase, Brown and Sons objected to Saturdays being included in the Bank Holiday schedule, contending it would mean an increase that would cause considerable customer resistance.
Pleasure Traffic First The application was granted as applied for, except that the 20 per cent increase for fares up to 10s. on the Saturday and Bank Holiday schedule was reduced to 15 per cent. In making the grant Mr. Else said the Commissioners accepted that operators needed to increase revenue and it was right that the situation should be attacked by increasing pleasure traffic prices first rather than essential stage services.
They accepted, too, that Brown and Sons were the principal operators on excursions and tours in the area concerned, and that they had developed and expanded this side of their business.
Brown and Sons had achieved their object by preventing the new fare scales from becoming operable this season. "They have an application for a stage carriage fares increase to be heard soon. I wonder if they have thought what the Commissioners' attitude will be towards that application when they have declined to increase the prices on services which give a much smaller pence-per-mile return ", said Mr. Else.
Mr. Skelding replied that he deprecated the chairman's remarks. His clients felt it was not right that they should be told to increase their Saturday fares so heavily by operators who were not Concerned with that day of the week. Brown and Sons, he claimed, were the only people in the district operating tours on n2 a Saturday, apart from a period ofthree weeks in August.
Denying that his clients were trying to be obstructive, he said the Commissioners, with their theoretical experience, had come to a decision which was not based on fact.
Mr. H. Tranter, for the applicants, said that in the Wellington and Ironbridge districts there was a close relationship between excursions and tours prices and those of private hire. All these applicants had agreed in principle that whatever the outcome of the case, private party prices would he based on the district schedule for excursions and tours.