Buses World News

"NEW ENERGY" SUBSIDY PROGRAM * China: Bus makers possibly violated rules

* Beijing - The government is probing electric car/bus makers who participated in a program designed to upgrade the auto industry

-- A government campaign designed to modernize China's auto industry and clear smoggy air by encouraging sales of "new energy" autos, trucks and buses may have backfired... Central government investigators have been fanning out across the country to determine whether auto companies and local governments abused the subsidy programs, which since 2009 have doled out hundreds of billions of yuan in subsidies to companies that build electric cars and other alternative-energy vehicles... Companies such as the nation's eighth-largest electric minibus maker by production, Suzhou GMC Bus, are among scores of industry players getting close scrutiny. Officials working for the provinces of Hebei, Jilin and elsewhere are also under the microscope for their implementation of subsidy policies... Some practices violated government rules...
Beijing, China – CAIXIN, by An Zhimin and Bao Zhiming - 15 March 2016

Labels: busmakers news China, subsidies

Concessionary Travel Scheme * UK - Bus firm is paid £150m for

There is no suggestion First has over-claimed under the scheme or submitted incorrect claim

Glasgow,Scotland,UK -The Sunday Herald, by Damien Henderson -28 Oct 2010: -- Scotland’s biggest bus company was paid more than £150 million in the first four years of the Government’s concessionary travel scheme, despite not accurately recording how many passengers were issued with free tickets... First Glasgow, was the only company in Scotland to opt to use passenger surveys to count the number of disabled and elderly passengers with concessionary tickets, rather than data from ticketing systems, when the policy was introduced in 2006... New figures disclosed to The Herald show that, prior to the introduction in April of mandatory electronic ticketing systems that accurately recorded concessionary passengers, First Glasgow was paid £151.6m from Transport Scotland, which administers the scheme... In the 12 months to April, the company was paid £44.5m, nearly a quarter of the total paid to bus operators that year for concessionary travel... There is no suggestion First has over-claimed under the scheme or submitted incorrect claims. However, a recent report by Audit Scotland was highly critical of the decision to allow different methods for counting concessionary passengers, which, combined with a four-year delay in introducing accurate electronic ticketing machines, meant there was a “substantial risk of claims being incorrect”... Transport Scotland declined to say whether First Glasgow had been investigated under its validation processes in cases of suspected overpayments, but said “appropriate” audit checks had confirmed payments to the company were correct... The agency also defended the concession card scheme as a “widespread success” but distanced itself from the accounting arrangements in place when it was introduced... (Photo - Fares Fair: Every year thousands of disabled and elderly Scots travel for free on buses under the concessionary scheme)

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDIES * UK - Companies taking taxpayer for a ride over free bus trips

Scottish Government subsidises fares for the over 60s but calls have been made to increase the qualifying age to 65

Scotland,UK -The Herald Scotland, by Damien Henderson -9 Aug 2010: -- Bus companies are facing renewed accusations of profiteering from a Scottish Government-backed concessionary bus travel scheme after new figures showed they were paid a record £187 million from it last year despite a drop in passenger numbers... Conservative Party Transport spokesman, Jackson Carlaw, claimed that the bill for providing free trips aboard the services for the over-60s and disabled passengers jumped to £186.8m – a £24m increase on two years previously – although 7.5 million fewer journeys were made during that time... Mr Carlaw, who obtained the figures in response to a parliamentary question, said they fuelled claims that bus firms are making excess profits on the back of the flagship scheme and prompted renewed calls for the Scottish Government to limit its scope... The Scottish Government has refused to follow in the footsteps of Westminster, where access to free bus travel is gradually being withdrawn from those aged between 60 and 65, despite an independent budgetary review last month recommending such a reform.

Labels: subsidies

Subsidy Support * New Zealand - Alarm At Govt Plan To “Commercialise” Public Transport

Auckland,New Zealand -AKT. by Jon C -Apr 7, 2010: ...
The revelation came during a discussion about a nice problem to have – too many people want to use Hamilton buses, in particular the issue of overcrowding on the increasingly popular Orbiter bus service in Hamilton is worrying authorities... The committee heard that growing school rolls – due to new students and more young people staying in education – and increased demand generally had all contributed to fuller buses on the clockwise and anti-clockwise Orbiter routes which circle Hamilton... Overcrowding problems with frustrated passengers unable to be picked up were particularly evident on the morning anti-clockwise route, the committee heard... Environment Waikato’s regional passenger transport committee has been told of an” initiative” by the Minister of Transport to “examine increased commercialisation of public transport/”... EW’s land transport operations manager Bevan Dale said that plan would result in “subsidy support for only those routes that are non-profitable”... Committee members raised a range of concerns about this, including a feeling that passenger bus services would never be fully commercial in New Zealand ... (Photo from stephenrees: Tindo bus, NZ)

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDIES * South Africa - Bus operators may be forced to close

On Friday, the Cape High Court ruled that the national government had to pay bus operators millions of rands in arrears for bus subsidies...

Cape Town,South Africa -Independent On Line -February 1, 2009: -- Even though the Treasury has agreed to bail out the National Department of Transport, there is still no clarity on when South Africa's bus operators will receive the millions owed to them in passenger subsidies... On Friday, the Cape High Court ruled that the national government had to pay bus operators millions of rands in arrears for bus subsidies... Bus subsidies were not paid because for three years the National Department of Transport had a budgetary shortfall of R1.2 billion which eventually caught up with them... According to the National Department of Transport's spokesman Collen Msibi, the company was allocated R2.9-billion for subsidies for this financial year, but it already had a R1.2-billion shortfall...

* Gauteng transport pays bus subsidies

Gauteng,South Africa -The Times -Feb 02, 2009: -- The Gauteng department of transport had paid the almost R114 million of bus subsidies owed to private bus operators today as required, spokesman Alfred Nhlapo said... "We have made the payment, with interest as well," said Nhlapo... The late payment of the subsidy came after a court challenge by bus operators who warned that commuters would be stranded and that they might have to close down and retrench people if they didn’t get their money... The dispute arose when private bus operators in the Western Cape and Gauteng were not paid the government subsidy that enabled them to keep passenger ticket prices down... The SA Bus Operators Association (Saboa) launched a series of court challenges on behalf of at least 12 companies in the province...

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDIES * South Africa - Transport union appeals to MPs for urgent action to ‘save bus industry’

CapeTown,South Africa -The Business Day, by Linda Ensor -28 Jan 2009: -- Urgent action was needed to avert the subsidised bus industry’s collapse and the loss of thousands of jobs as a result of the state’s failure to pay subsidies to bus companies for the past four months, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) said yesterday... Parliament’s transport committee, which heard Satawu’s appeal for urgent intervention, decided to call treasury and transport officials to brief it next week... In the meantime, the state should provide contingency funding before the end of the month, the committee said... The accumulated shortfall in bus subsidy payments of R1,2bn arose because the transport department’s bus subsidy budget was exhausted in November...

Labels: subsidies

* South Africa - Bus crisis looms

Cape Town,South Africa -business.iafrica, by Ebrahim Moolla -8 Dec 2008: -- Millions of commuters could be left stranded from next month if the national department of transport does not pay out a R1.2-billion bus subsidy, the SA Bus Operators Association (Saboa) said on Monday... Saboa's vice president Adolph Komane said, almost three million passenger trips and a total of 1.5 million passengers would be affected each day, if subsidies were not paid out... Saboa had been told that efforts by the department to obtain money from the Treasury had also failed... He said efforts to get the department to discuss the matter further had not been fruitful...

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDIES * Viet Nam - HCM City boosts bus system ones

HCM City,Viet Nam -The Viet Nam News (Hanoi) -19 Mar 2008: -- Bus owners in the city’s transport co-operatives sighed with relief after the city People’s Committee approved an additional VND122 billion (US$7.62 million) in bus subsidies on Monday... Earlier in the year, the city council committee approved VND450 billion ($28.12 million) for the bus system this year... The city People’s Committee urged the Department of Transport and Public Works to strengthen management with the aim of increasing income and cutting fuel and labour costs... The city said costs could be cut by VND13 billion ($812,500) each year... According to co-operative members, the extra subsidy was a temporary solution to maintain the city bus system, adding that a readjustment of subsidy and ticket prices would be the long-term solution...

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDIES * South Africa - Bus firms go to court for fare's money

Gauteng,S. Africa -The Business Standard (Johannesburg,SA), by Sibongile Khumalo -January 24, 2008: -- Gauteng bus operators are taking the provincial department of transport to court, claiming that unpaid subsidies worth more than R200 million (U$S 28 M) have left them bankrupt... North West Star and its subsidiary, Atteridgeville Bus Services, want the Johannesburg high court to force Gauteng transport MEC Ignatius Jacobs and national transport minister Jeff Radebe to honour a subsidy contract... Atteridgeville Bus Services says the debt has forced the company to shut up shop and suspend its bus service from February 4... The two businesses are among nine Gauteng bus companies affected by the nonpayment of subsidies... North West Star district manager Freddy Zondag said contractual subsidies to companies rendering public transport services to northern Pretoria were abruptly cut off in October last year...

Labels: subsidies

SUBSIDY * UK - The bus with a £1m, and, only 13 passengers

A Bendy-bus service funded with £1m of public money is carrying an average of just 13 passengers per trip...

Wales,uk -The South Wales Echo,by Matthew Aplin -July 25, 2007: -- Meanwhile, Assembly workers are travelling a similar route on their own subsidised buses costing £120,000 a year... The 133-capacity Baycar buses between Cardiff city centre and the Bay carried 383,000 passengers on 30,000 journeys over the last financial year, according to information released to the Echo under the Freedom of Information Act...

Labels: subsidies