Tulsablue wrote:
not quite correct Andy
The "service" does not need to be registered if it is not open to the public in general ie it is only for the customers of the nightclub in a similar way to free supermarktet buses. There are some other extra bits but very technical. I am in the Coach Industry and I really do wish that all forms of Public Transport would learn to work together.
Yes Tulsablue, you are absolutely correct. But then, it would be a Private Hire wouldn't it.
There have been a number of prosecutions for pubs running customers home in their own unlicensed mnibuses. I am not so sure how it stands if the pub were a PSV operator though. Or, the pub hired a PSV. But, if it charges separate fares a'la "excursion" should this not be pre-booked? I would suggest, if not pre-booked, it constitutes a separate fare "local service" consequently needing registration.
As for your comment about working together, do you mean in the same way as, for example, Brian Souter?
I too, wish that we could all work together much more than we do, so I support you on that one. But I too have been in the Bus/Coach Industry since 1969, and have not yet seen many examples of even two bus companies working together.
First Bus are the big operators around here, and they also run the railway, sadly however, in five years, they have not been able to get their Rail Link bus to connect with their own train timetable. And, when the trains fail, they use us and not their own Bus Company.
On the other side of the coin however, we operate a lot of taxi-link sub-feeder services for two large coach operators, and to date, we have worked extremely well together.
Sadly however, while John Prescott was very big on getting transport to integrate better, the only Transport Act we have had from his Government just moved Taxis and Buses further apart due to pressure from some councils. And not without some bitterness from some areas of the trade.
We
can all work together, and many do. And I am sure this would all work much better if we started off with a level playing field, and legislation that made sense too.