Chapter 159A

Section 1. No person shall, except as otherwise provided in this chapter, operate any motor vehicle upon any public way in any city or town for the carriage of passengers for hire, in such a manner as to afford a means of transportation similar to that afforded by a railway compa…

Section 10. Any person engaged in the operation of motor vehicles under a license and certificate as provided in this chapter is hereby declared to be a common carrier. The department shall have general supervision and regulation of, and jurisdiction and control over such common …

Section 11. If the department after notice and hearing finds that any motor vehicle subject to this chapter has been operated in violation of any provision thereof, it may notify the registrar of motor vehicles of its findings, and the registrar may thereupon revoke the registrat…

Section 11A. No person shall operate or offer to provide service by means of any motor vehicle carrying ten or more persons, including the driver, upon any public way in charter service, as hereinafter defined, unless he shall have obtained from the department a license to engage…

Section 11B. Notwithstanding the provisions of chapter one hundred and sixty-one A to the contrary, any city or town may, for the purpose of providing public transportation facilities or avoiding a reduction or discontinuance of such transportation facilities or for the purpose o…

Section 12. The licensing authority in any city or town may, in respect of matters not treated of in the provisions of law governing the operation of motor vehicles under this chapter or rules established by the department, adopt rules and regulations governing such operation. Af…

Section 13. Nothing contained in this chapter shall lessen or affect the authority or powers of the department of highways or of the registrar of motor vehicles under chapter ninety.

Section 14. The provisions of this chapter shall not apply to transportation by the system known as trolleymotor or trackless trolley under the provisions of chapter one hundred and sixty-three.

Section 15. Whoever violates any provision of this chapter for which no other penalty is provided, or any order, rule or regulation adopted or established thereunder, or any lawful requirement, condition, limitation or restriction contained in any certificate, permit or license, …

Section 16. Whoever fraudulently evades or attempts to evade the payment of a fare lawfully established by a common carrier duly licensed under the provisions of this chapter, either by giving a false answer to the collector of the fare, or by travelling beyond the point to which…

Section 2. Every such license shall specify the route or routes over which the motor vehicles used thereunder may be operated, and shall be on a form approved by the department of telecommunications and energy; provided, that a variance from a form so approved shall not affect th…

Section 3. If a person desiring to operate any motor vehicle for the purposes and in the manner aforesaid over a route covering at least twenty miles holds a license therefor in the terminal municipalities and also a license in all but one of the intervening municipalities, or, i…

Section 31. Whoever willfully, with intent to endanger the safety of any person on board or any person who he believes will board the same, or with a reckless disregard for the safety of human life, damages, disables, destroys, tampers with, or places or causes to be placed any e…

Section 32. Notwithstanding other provisions of this chapter, the school department of a town may make vehicles under its control available to transport a community group, including, but not limited to, senior citizens, little league teams, and a town recreation group, and may ch…

Section 4. A license issued under this chapter on or after November first, nineteen hundred and forty-five, for operations as to which no certificate of public convenience and necessity under section seven is obtained within three years after the date when such license is issued …

Section 5. The department may, in order to provide for unusual, sudden or unforeseen transportation needs, or to avoid interruption of existing transportation facilities, issue such temporary licenses as it deems that public convenience and necessity may require over such route o…

Section 6. No motor vehicle shall be operated under any license issued under this chapter until the licensee, in addition to complying with all orders, rules and regulations of the licensing authority, shall have deposited with the state treasurer a bond, running to him in such s…

Section 7. No person shall operate a motor vehicle under a license issued as aforesaid unless he has also obtained from the department a certificate declaring that public convenience and necessity require such operation. The department may, after public hearing, issue or refuse t…

Section 7A. Any certificate of public convenience and necessity granted by the department pursuant to section seven and chapter three hundred and seventy-eight of the acts of nineteen hundred and forty-seven and any license or permit granted pursuant to sections one, three and el…

Section 8. No motor vehicle shall be operated under a license issued under the provisions of this chapter without a permit from the department, except that a motor vehicle of an interstate carrier being used simultaneously in both interstate operations and intrastate operations u…

Section 9. No person shall drive any motor vehicle under authority of this chapter unless he shall, in addition to being duly licensed by the registrar of motor vehicles to operate such motor vehicles, be licensed by the department. No such license shall be issued by the departme…