Opinion ID: 1494647
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the company's appeal

Text: At the hearing before the administrator the Company presented a statement of its operating revenues and expenses for the six-months period preceding the filing of its petition as well as a projection of what those revenues and expenses would be for the twelve-months period from August 1. 1964 to July 31, 1965. The estimates for the twelve-months period, hereinafter referred to as the base period, were made on the assumption that existing services would continue. Both the actual and the projected statements indicated that neither the prescribed operating ratio nor the fixed minimum return had been or could be maintained or secured. In addition, the Company proposed specific relief which would enable it to maintain an operating ratio of 91.97 per cent. The administrator, while in substantial agreement with the Company's estimates of its anticipated operating revenues and expenses for the base period, added to the former and reduced the latter. Premised upon the estimated operating totals as adjusted by him, he granted relief to a lesser degree than proposed by the Company but sufficient to enable it to achieve an operating ratio of 93.24 per cent for the base period. Specifically, he authorized the Company to abandon all operations within the Woonsocket division and on three suburban lines within the Elmwood division, to reroute certain lines as proposed and to eliminate service on Sundays and holidays in the Pawtucket division. He denied, however, the request for a fare increase, and refused to authorize either an abandonment of all service within the Pawtucket division or an elimination of Sunday and holiday service within the Elmwood division. The Company charges that additions made by the administrator to its estimates of operating revenues to the extent of $102,000 were not properly attributable thereto and that it was improper for him to reduce its projected operating expenses by $41,000. It argues that the degree of relief granted is so limited that any error in the administrator's computations will make impossible the maintenance during the base period of either the prescribed operating ratio or the fixed minimum return on its rate base. Because the administrator does not dispute this contention as to the limitations of the degree of relief granted, we will pass separately on each of the challenges advanced by the Company to the adjustments made by him.