Inspection fees up
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STRONG OPPOSITION from the Bus and Coach Council and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has failed to stop regulations laying down new fees for the inspection of public service vehicles carried out under the Certificate of Initial Fitness and Type Approval Regulations from being laid before Parliament.
The fee (CM, November 24) for the inspection for the issue of a certificate of initial fitness goes up from £35 to £88. A reinspection now costs E10 and a tilt re-test fee has been set at £88, excluding the hire of facilities.
The fee for full type approval goes up from £125 to £1,180.
Under the Type certification procedures where a complete vehicle, a body or a chassis conforms substantially to those already approved as a type vehicle, the fee goes up from E50 to £554.
Where the vehicle has a chassis and a body which have formed parts of different vehicles which have already been approved as type vehicles the fee rises from £25 to £278.
Where the vehicle conforms except in unimportant details to a vehicle already approved as a type vehicle and no inspection of the vehicle is made the fee goes up from £5 to £54. A Certificate of Conformity stays at £5.
The choice of certification procedure for a new public service vehicle rests with the manufacturer and depends on the likely production run of a new vehicle model.
When a large batch of vehicles is constructed to exactly, or almost, the same design (for example Leyland's National bus) the Type Certification procedure is used.
The severity of the increases represents the Department of Transport and Government initiatives which require each service to be self-financing.
The DTp says that much of the cost of these services in the past was covered by the psv operator licensing system.