ENG-1968 — Page 276

204

COMMUNICATIONS

with one of the latter as its chairman, to advise the Governor or the statutory authority, who in most cases is the Commissioner for Transport, on all aspects of transport and traffic policy, with the exception of external sea and air communications. In order to expedite the business of the committee and with the purpose of assisting the more effective discussion of the wide range of transport and traffic matters which come before it, it was decided to reduce the official membership to four and the unofficial membership to six, with one of the unofficial members continuing as chairman, with effect from December 1. The new committee now consists of, on the official side, the Director of Public Works, the Commissioner of Police, the Commissioner for Transport and the Deputy Economic Secretary. These, together with the six unofficial members, including the chairman, are all appointed by the Governor.

At the same time it was decided to make the Transport Office, which had functioned as a branch of the Colonial Secretariat from its inception on December 1, 1965, a separate department from December 1, 1968. The more compact committee in conjunction with an independent Transport Department will be better able to develop the sort of expertise which will be necessary if the many major problems concerning Government in the transport and traffic field are to be effectively and rapidly resolved. =

The Transport Department provides a secretariat for the Trans- port Advisory Committee besides carrying out a wide range of executive functions such as vehicle licensing and registration, driving testing and licensing and vehicle inspection. As the statu- tory authority, the Commissioner for Transport is also responsible for regulating public transport services and co-ordinating action between other departments in the transport field.

The number of registered vehicles at the end of 1968 was 111,272, an increase of 10.2 per cent over the previous year. (Vehicle statistics are given in Appendix XXXVIII). The demand for driving licences continued to rise and during the year 178,265 driving tests were conducted and 23,922 driving licences were issued.

The system of compulsory annual inspection of taxis and public cars, instituted in June 1966, was extended to all dual purpose vans registered before January 1, 1964 to ensure that these vehicles