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The closing sessions of last week's MPTA conference provided ironic comment on the intervention of government in the affairs of public transport. In the first period a Ministry under-secretary stressed that unreliability of bus services was the main factor in public dissatisfaction and passenger falloff, and urged operators and local authorities to put their energies into projects designed to better their services. In the second period striking evidence was presented to show that the Ministry's new regulations limiting driving and working hours were not only causing almost all inessential services to be abandoned but were creating more unreliability of running than any other single factor that had ever affected the industry. As one speaker said, it seemed incredible that while one section of the Ministry was spending money and urging co-operation in schemes designed to help the bus, another section's regulations were making it impossible even to maintain the services which had inspired the original need for bus-aid projects.
The situation would be farcical if it were not so serious. The Ministry official declared that a strong case would have to be made in order to effect any changes in the regulations. Enough evidence could soon be collected to show how savagely the regulations are cutting into the very public transport which successive governments have pledged themselves to support. In the White Paper Public Transport and Traffic produced by Mrs. Castle it was stated that -the Government . has no desire to introduce changes which will result in serious inconvenience if not actual hardship to the travelling public": there was a further assurance that the Government would have full regard to the provision of adequate services for the travelling public. In the light of the information about service cuts, staff frustration and shortages caused or exacerbated by the new regulations, those statements sound a little hollow.