PASSENGER TRANSPORT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21253, 5 August 1932, Page 13

PASSENGER TRANSPORT

CONTROL OF SERVICES PRINCIPLES OF THE ACT LIMITING COMPETITION [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] NAPIER, Thursday Several interesting pronouncements upon tlie logal principles. set out in the Transport Act, particularly with regard to what is popularly termed "pirating" by passenger services in competition with one another, were made by Mr. Justice Frazer, chairman of the Transport Appeal Board, at the hearing of an appeal by Nimon and Sons, bus proprietors, running a service between Hastings and Havelock North, a route upon which a car service entered into competition two years ago. The car service, the proprietor of which is F. E. Rofe, served an area not covered by the buses, but reached largely by traversing a part of the bus route. Formerly, but not since a modification of his licence by a local transport authority on July 26, Rofe had picked up and put down passengers on a part of the bus route, but latterly had restricted himself to serving a district populated almost wholly by smallholders. Rofe's practice was to deliver his passengers to their doors, and at small extra charges beyond the prescribed fare over his prescribed route, to take passengers wherever they wished to go. Evidence heard to-day showed that the service to farming people in the outlying areas was of extreme convenience and would cease if Rofe lost the appeal. His counsel relied partly on a contention that Rofe could simultaneously use his cars as a general taxi service as well as a general passenger transport service. There were two aspects to be considered, said the chairman in his judgment. The practical side had to be considered in the light of section 26 of the Transport Act, which said that a licensing authority, in dealing with any application for a licence, had generally to regard the necessity and desirability of granting licences as they affected the whole requirements of passenger transport. It cost a shilling a mile to run the buses, and they were making a dead loss of over 4Jld on every mile in this case. If the cars yere permitted to continue, the bus service could not survive. Then when the buses had been run off the road the car service would be called upon to deal with the whole of the passenger transport requirements, including peak loading. The only conclusion was that the route must be served by the buses in the interests of the district as a whole. The chairman said he sympathised with those residents who had found the service convenient. Such facilities did not exist in the cities, however, and the people in the country, no matter how earnestly they might desire such facilities, had to consider to what extent the community could afford to supply them. Rofe's counsel had suggested that a general passenger service run by cars could simultaneously run as a taxi service, and, for the purpose of delivering people to their own doors, could divert from the prescribed route of its operations as a general passenger service, continued Mr. Justice Frazer. If that _ contention were correct there was nothing to prevent the application of the principle to the operations of city bus services, which thus would be allowed to cut into one another's areas without doing violence to the Act. "We cannot uphold counsel's contention," be said. "A car must travel over a prescribed route, and over no other."