Dereg confusion: PTE chief
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THE FORTHCOMING route registration rules will deter more operators than are intimidated by road service licensing, West Midlands PTE director-general James Isaac claimed last week.
In a speech at the Transport research and Consultancy Brief ing deregulation conference in London, Isaac said he welcomed die principle of deregulation, but dismissed the provisions of the Transport Bill as a "nonsense".
The route registration process is so complicated that more operators will be deterred by it than ever were by the road service licensing system, he said.
He also added that it is a strange kind of competition that prevents PTEs from competing for passengers in neighbouring shire counties.
Competition could make the West Midlands operation leaner and "even more" efficient, he claimed.
But, he told delegates the present Bill proposes to expropriate the buses from the PTEs and this will not help the professional managements compete.
It also proposes that money for socially necessary services raised by the passenger transport authority should be handled by the PTE.
This is a recipe for future trouble, and if he was an elected councillor he would not accept that.
All the savings likely from deregulation, and more, could be better achieved by the present PTE co-ordinated and integrated public transport system with the introduction of supply-side competitve tendering, concluded Isaac.
He feared the Bill will turn any savings into other people's costs.