Bus firm fined £60k in route row

Eric Baxter • Published 3 Jul 2010 12:00

INVERCLYDE'S biggest bus operator has been fined for not operating some services.

The Traffic Commissioner for Scotland has fined McGill's £60,500 for failing to run local registered services 'without a reasonable excuse' in 2008.

The decision was taken following a public inquiry called by Traffic Commissioner Joan Aitken.

Evidence was given that Bus Compliance Officers had monitored three routes operated by the company - 575 Greenock to Wemyss Bay, 576 Greenock to Largs and the 906 Glasgow to Largs/Wemyss Bay.

The officers noted that 114 operations had been observed of which 43 were 'not compliant' - 16 failed to operate and 18 were outside the running limits of being one minute early or five minutes late.

And, on nine occasions, there was what was termed an 'additional/unregistered' bus.

A spokeswoman for McGill's said the fine relates to a time in 2008 when the routes operated by Slaemuir were purchased by McGill's.

She said: "This resulted in a shortage of drivers due to some Slaemuir drivers not transferring to McGill's and some journeys not having a bus as often as the published timetable."

She added: "McGill's employs 240 people, mainly locally, and is committed to delivering the highest quality of service achievable.

"This decision from the Traffic Commissioner is a reminder that we must always be on our guard and that even good companies, from time to time, can make a mistake.

"Our customers should be assured we are determined a repeat of this will never happen again. McGill's operates one of the newest fleets in Scotland and aims to be Scotland's foremost independent operator."

Tweet

This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 03 Jul 10

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our News archives.

Follow @greenocktele