The first of the public meetings on the new Transport Management Plan received a poor response last night when only about ten residents bothered to turn up.

Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown was hosting the first of three meetings to explain a raft of new proposals designed to get people out of their cars and onto public transport.

Among the proposals are steps to better integrate the public system, along with plans to introduce water taxis, hotel shuttle services for those hotels near to the airport, and considerations to limit car ownership.

Dr. Brown said the aim of the plan was to make public transport more affordable, convenient and comfortable for passengers, while cleaning up the roads and the environment.

However, there were few people to listen to him. The ten members of the transport team giving the presentation, along with onlookers Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans, Opposition MPs Allan Marshall and Jamahl Simmons, and Secretary of the Corporation of Hamilton Roger Sherratt, outnumbered the amount of ordinary residents in attendance.

And of the ten members of the public who were there, only five bothered to speak.

Dr. Brown said the new fast ferries, the first of which is due to arrive mid-March, would be more frequent than the present service and would have timetables to suit when residents needed to be in town.

And when the issue of the controversial computerised taxi dispatch system was raised, Dr. Brown said he hoped the “fragmented taxi industry” would come together as one and said people had forgotten that the object of the central dispatch system was to serve the public.

He said: “The object here is not to force anything on the industry. The real object is to serve the public. That is sometimes forgotten.... Government has bent over backwards.”

And he said Government had offered to financially assist those taxi owners who could not afford the $2,000 needed to purchase the digital dispatch equipment.

But last to speak at the meeting was Gordon Flood, president of the Bermuda Taxi Owners' Association, who said the industry would fight the dispatch system to the end.

He said: “We had a meeting the other night and we were so fragmented, we had over 350 drivers there. “The majority of the owners feel that the system is not necessary for an Island this size. Not everyone can read and so will not be able to read the display, and others with have take eye glasses on and off. It's not feasible.”

The Corporation's Mr. Sherratt complimented the transport team on the plan and said he understood the difficulties they faced and believed they, and the corporation were working from the same page.

The second meeting will be held tonight at Sandys Middle School at 7.30 p.m., and the last one will be held tomorrow at St. David's Primary School, at the same time. Everyone is encouraged to attend.