'renal flair on the buses
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.FTER first being applied to /ages and salaries in the Paris 3g ion in 1971, a two per cent impost" to benefit and improve ublic transport operations has een gradually extended to rovincial cities.
Last year legislation enabled mailer towns (i.e., those with ver 30,000 inhabitants) to apply tax of 0.5 per cent for the nprovement of public transport ervices.
At the same time, new rules in le Paris area gave commuters le opportunity to charge 40 per ent of their season ticket cost to left employers. This year the mployers' liability will be raised 50 per cent of the cost of a onthly season so that, while ar users may possibly face igher fuel taxes, there is a enuine incentive to make laximum use of buses and the left°.
On the equipment side, evelopments include ompletion of prototypes of new standard" buses. A vast rogramme of new bus lanes nd "reserved track" sections is Is° under way.
Exceptional progress has been nade in the preparation and listribution of public nformation material and imetables. Stop markers and Pus identification are being • adically improved so that the 'black hole" in this sector, which lad existed for so long in :ranee, has now been filled in.
Nonethelesss there is little of he hostile attitude towards private car users which, Jnfortunately, features so prominently in London. lecognising fully the .3ontribution which "individual :raffic" must continue to make :owards a fully effective overall transport pattern in cities, Dperators in France continually seek to devise new incentives to travel by bus.
A recent scheme in Montpellier — west of Marseilles — illustrates this clearly. There, an experimental scheme of linking all multi-storey and other car parks by a regular free town centre bus shuttle, has proved so successful that it has been put on a regular basis.
The Montpellier buses provide a 10-minute service frequency throughout the day and already more than 26 per cent of their users have stopped altogether bringing their cars into the central area.
Montpellier has also modified an earlier German idea by placing a "parcels bus" in the central shopping area so that shoppers can deposit their purchases until returning to the car parks.
A lot of money is also being spent on environmental improvements in France and among these schemes is one giving properties bordering the notorious "Peripherigue" ring road in Paris better noise relief. The ambitious four year programme will install sound screens and baffles, some up to 3m high, domestic doubleglazing and partial roofing-over of some sections in cutting.