Yellow Transportation

Most commuters may look at this region's gridlocked beltways and cities as a nightmare. But Europe's largest private operator of buses and commuter trains sees only lucrative opportunities. That is why Connex is acquiring privately held Yellow Transportation Inc. of Baltimore, the chief executive of the French company said yesterday in his first interview since the deal was confirmed last week. "The Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing and most congested areas in the U.S.," said Antoine Frerot.

The Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates the taxi industry, said yesterday that it has been aware for weeks that Yellow Transportation Inc. was in negotiations to be sold to a foreign company, and is preparing for what could be a complicated review process. "It could potentially be a fairly large transaction that may require a different kind of review because [Yellow] is a bigger operation," PSC spokesman Bob Harris said. "To my knowledge, we've never looked at any transactions involving non-U.

The president of Yellow Transportation Inc., operator of Baltimore's largest taxi fleet, said yesterday that the company is negotiating to be acquired by a French company. The deal is expected to close within the next month, said Mark L. Joseph, Yellow's president. Joseph declined to give further details. The prospective purchaser reportedly is Connex, a transportation subsidiary of the French conglomerate Vivendi Universal SA. Connex, a major private operator of rail lines and road transportation vehicles and services in Europe, Asia and Australia, does not have operations in North or South America.

The people who run the state's Mobility ride program for the disabled assured state legislators yesterday that service is improving, and that late vehicles and stranded riders are rare exceptions - an opinion disputed by some of their customers, who attended the hearing in wheelchairs. Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat who chaired the House Appropriations subcommittee briefing, said afterward that he believed the program was working. Nevertheless, he all but invited the Mass Transit Administration to request millions of dollars for improvements.

State legislators plan to question representatives of the Mass Transit Administration and Yellow Transportation Co. next week about problems experienced by disabled people who rely on a state-financed ride program. Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat, arranged the session after a story in Thursday's editions of The Sun that described long-standing difficulties encountered by riders. About 5,400 disabled Baltimore area residents regularly rely on the service, paying $1.55 a trip to get to work, school, shopping, church and doctor appointments.

A charter bus driver's failure to report drinking by Owings Mills High School students on his bus en route to their prom has resulted in Yellow Transportation's temporary suspension from Baltimore County's Safe and Sober Prom Pledge Program."

Overwhelmed by unexpected demand, the state-subsidized program that provides rides to the elderly and disabled is leaving many people throughout the metropolitan area stranded, some of them waiting hours for service.More than 1,700 such riders use Yellow Transportation's service every weekday, 300 riders a day more than last year."We never anticipated this type of demand," said Mark L. Joseph, owner of Yellow Transportation, which is paid $6.5 million a year by the Mass Transit Administration to operate the service.

Chappie Manning does the math on 47 years of working as a Baltimore cabbie and comes up with nearly 3 million miles, more than 100,000 gallons of gas and countless cabs.Not to mention the naked passenger who wanted to go to York Road (but got there only after putting his pants on), a smash-up with a drunken driver and the two armed men who carjacked the 79-year-old Golden Gloves middleweight boxer.His bosses at Yellow Transportation Inc. -- astonished to discover that Manning had been driving for them nearly a half-century -- insisted on throwing a surprise thank you party yesterday to honor his dependability and character over such a long fare.

RELIABILITY IS one of the pillars of a successful public transportation service. Travelers need to be sure that vehicles will arrive on time, at the right stop, when heading to work, medical appointments or to link up with connecting routes.Unfortunately, reliable service is becoming a myth for riders of the Howard Area Transit Service (HATS). Some of them filed more than 30 complaints against the bus system in the first eight weeks after Yellow Transportation began operating the suburban network.

Yellow Transportation Inc. -- which was awarded Howard County's two largest public transportation services last week -- made it a clean sweep yesterday by beating two other bidders to provide bus service for the elderly, disabled and impoverished in the county.The Savage-based company will operate the county's "para-transit" service for five years, beginning July 1, with an option to renew for an additional two years."We're very excited about the opportunity," said Mark L. Joseph, president of Yellow Transportation, which also will operate the Howard Area Transit Service and Connect-A-Ride for the county.