Cab-share shock
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E CLOUDS over busmen's horizons took 'this week with the revelation that the .oduce taxi sharing.
on a distinctly blacker Home Office wants to ■ draft consultation paper has prepared by the Home ice, and is awaiting Minisal approval. It calls for remoof the present restrictions ich limit taxis to charging one ?. per journey, and also pro;es that taxis be allowed to lect extra passengers in the Jr:se of a journey.
'he scheme has been sugited in the same week as East ssex County Council an..inced the start of a rural ired taxi scheme around Pole:e, whereby subsidised taxis ry passengers for 20p for any irney within a prescribed area the town. That scheme falls .hin the mould of the 1980 ins port Act.
(Vhile the Licensed Taxi Driv;' Association described the Home Office's proposals as an opportunity to introduce a "massive new clientele to the taxi trade", the Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport's reaction was, predictably, less welcoming.
CPT director-general Denis Quin told CM: "All these gimmicky solutions will add up at the end of the day to a worse service for the public, and it is the busmen who will get blamed, not those really responsible."
Mr Quin said the CPT recognises that the passengers' needs must come first, but he said buses, rather than unconventional public transport, would meet these needs. He quoted a National Consumer Council report which said: "We strongly oppose any widespread replacement of conventional with unconventional services."
He believed the peak problem could best be met by making it easier for buses to move in heavy traffic, and cited London Transport figures which show that if services moved at the same speed on Mondays to Fridays as they do on Saturdays, they would be 15 per cent faster, would save £30m a year, and would attract £12m more revenue.
But he said bitterly: "Despite all this, the Government's policy is to do everything except help the bus to do a better job."