Inter-State Buses : Tourists First
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GOVERNMENT representatives of Austria, Belgium, Denmark. France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland took part in a recent international. conference at The Hague on problems connected with the establishment of a co-ordinated network of international' bus -services in Western Europe.
Generally speaking,. the delegates agreed on two important principles. The first is that international services will have primarily to serve tourists, and distances covered each day must therefore not be too long, nor must buses be driven at night.
In accordance with the legal situation in most countries, the second principle holds that international bus services must not carry purelyinternal traffic.
Some difficulties arose out of a third point : that of licensing and licensing systems. As large investments are .nvolved in the establishment of an international bus service, the bus owners require assurmce that their activities will not be hampered by national restrictions or discriminating licensing systems. Therefore. they say, the issue of licences should, to a certain extent, be on uniform lines.
As the present licensing systems and the principles on which these are based vary, no conclusion could he reached at the conference. the governments concerned will now review the situations in their own countries, especially as regards the licences for international bus services which have already been issued and the applications awaiting decision. In October, another meeting will be called.