Cheap Fares for Old-age Pensioners Railways Press Silver
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Cause Alarm in Yorkshire
A PPLICATIONS proposing the introduction of concessionary fares for .4-1old-age pensioners on certain excursions, which came before the Yorkshire Traffic Commissioners .at Leeds last Friday, raised wide issues of national importance and have created alarm among existing stage operators. Three companies within the Wallace Arnold Group—Wallace Arnold Tours, Ltd., Leeds; Feather Bros. (Tours), Ltd., Bradford, and J. W. Kitchin and Sons, Ltd., Bradford—had applied to introduce fares for old-age pensioners on all excursions except football matches, race meetings and period excursions at three-quarters of the authorized fare.
Objectors were British Railways and 17 stage operators. It was proposed that these concessions would be available on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, throughout the excursion period, excepting Easter Tuesday, Whit-Tuesday and all days from the Tuesday two weeks before Bank Holiday Monday until the end of August.
Mr. Malcolm Barr, assistant managing director of the Wallace Arnold group, stated there had been a big drop in their excursion traffic, vehicles were mostly 41-seaters and a high proportion had empty seats. Day excursion traffic receipts had fallen from £109,000 in 1949 to £78,000 in 1958 and the decline had to be checked.
General Increase?
He had considered a general increase in fares but a previous grant in 1952, did not give increased revenue on excursions. Alternatively, a general decrease of fares would not lead to an increase in revenue.
He had therefore put an application which he hoped would attract new people to travel in off-peak periods. British Railways, he said, gave concession fares for mid-week travel in an endeavour to create traffic. The proposal would not mean that they would compete with British Railways, or the stagecarriage operators, as the services they offered were not comparable. Stage operators feared a precedent by the• application rather than any question of abstraction,, he said.
Cross-examined by Mr. W. R. Hargreaves for certain stage-carriage objectors, Mr. Barr agreed that he had made the application without consulting the Yorkshire Regional Fares Committee, who subsequently disapproved of his application. The fare had been calculated as the same charged by -"Leeds operators for private-party work for oldage pensioners. He denied it was a deliberate attempt to obtain a cut in fares.
Huddersfield Follow Huddersfield operators, in their applications, followed the same basic conditions, but applied to operate for pensioners at two-thirds of the authorized adult fare. Mr. Leonard Hutchinson, traffic manager for Hansons Buses, Ltd., Huddersfield, stated that their traffic on excursions and tours had dropped and they were very concerned. On five licences in 1953 they had carried 18,967 passengers. Last year this figure had fallen to 16,994.
The Huddersfield application had been made independently, of the Wallace Arnold proposals. The concessions applied for were greater than those for Leeds, as the private-hire concessions in Huddersfield were greater than in Leeds, Hansons undertook not to object to any excursion and tour operators making a similar application in the area.
Further applications were made by BottomIey Motors (1951), Ltd., Huddersfield, and Baddeley Bros., Ltd., Holmfirth, and Heaps •• Tours, Ltd., Leeds.
Mr. Hargreaves said that although British Railways attempted to stimulate off-peak traffic—he was afraid of these particular applications and of the precedent they would create. Cross-examined by Mr. G. Goss, for Wallace Arnold, Mr. Hargreaves denied he was following the old railway principle of objecting to everything Private Hire Upset Mr. J. T. Rogers, of Rogers Motor Coaches, Leeds, an excursion and tour operator since before 1930, said he would like to assist old age pensioners but considered there was plenty of others who could be included, such as subnormal people. He was alarmed that the applications would upset his private hire prices.
The hearing was adjourned until a date to he announced.
GLASGOW DIAL-CHECK MAY HELP CONGESTION
A NEW method of "checking in,, by 1--1 Glasgow Corporation bus crews is to be tried out on four services operating in Paisley Road. If the experiment is successful it should considerably ease the flow of traffic in city streets.
Conductors at present stamp their cards at time clocks, throughout the city, but records are left in the clock, and often do not reaeh the transport offices for some days.
Under the new scheme conductors will simply turn a key to send art immediate report of a vehicle's position to the duty officer in the transport department offices. Any service delays will be apparent and immediate action can be taken.
The system uses a technique similar to telephone dialling. Development of the first electro-mechanical installation will cost an estimated £2,600.