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Public Bus Services (Amendment) Bill 1995

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Transport, Mr Haider Barma. in moving the second reading of the Public Bus Services (Amendment) Bill 1995 in Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President.

I move that the Public Bus Services (Amendment) Bill 1995 be read the second time.

Franchised bus companies play a vital role in providing public transport. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that over 3.5 million passenger trips are made by bus every day. Any serious disruption to bus services would have dire consequences and it is incumbent on the Administration to do its best to prevent such a situation from arising. The Public Bus Services (Amendment) Bill 1995 before Members today seeks to provide the Government with the necessary powers to deal with emergencies should a franchised bus company cease to operate.

The present Ordinance was enacted in 1975, over 20 years ago. The existing provisions which empower the Governor in Council to revoke the franchise of a bus company that fails to maintain a proper and efficient service and to take temporary possession of its property for a period not exceeding one year or suspend a franchise in case of an emergency are inadequate to deal with present-day situations. One key reason is that the sizes of bus fleets have grown substantially. Thus if one of the major operators ceases to operate, there would simply be insufficient lead time within the one-year period to select a replacement operator and to allow the replacement operator powers to to gear up to operate a proper franchised bus service. We also need to have deal with situations where a franchise is not renewed and, apart from leasing bus depots and buses, to empower the Government to purchase property which is considered to be absolutely necessary for bus operations, e.g. buses and spare parts. This is to facilitate a replacement operator's preparatory work to commence service.

Indeed the measures proposed are tough but they are required to safeguard public bus services in emergency situations. However, the Government has no intention whatsoever to penalise the franchisee financially and, accordingly, the Bill provides for open market rentals or compensation to be paid for leasing or purchasing buses and other property required to provide a bus service.