(a) No refund of any tax shall be granted on motor vehicle fuel used in propelling passenger carrying vehicles, except six cents ($0.06) of the tax imposed upon each gallon of motor vehicle fuel used in propelling passenger carrying vehicles used for the transportation of persons for hire, compensation, or profit of the following:

(1) Any transit district, transit authority, or city owning and operating a local transit system itself or through a wholly owned nonprofit corporation.

(2) Any private entity providing transportation services for the transportation of people under contract or agreement, except general franchise agreements, with a public agency authorized to provide public transportation services, including, but not limited to, any nonprofit corporation designated as a consolidated transportation service agency pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 15975 of the Government Code, which provides door-to-door transportation services under contract or agreement with a transit district, transit authority, or public agency authorized to provide transportation services, but only for fuels consumed while providing services under those contracts or agreements entered into subsequent to the effective date of this act.

(3) Any passenger stage corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the Public Utilities Commission when the motor vehicles of such passenger stage corporation are exclusively operated in urban or suburban areas or between cities in close proximity; provided, however, that the exemption is not extended to any line or lines operated by such passenger stage corporation which shall exceed 50 miles of one-way route mileage.

(4) Any common carrier of passengers operating exclusively on any line or lines within the limits of a single city between fixed termini or over a regular route, 98 percent of whose operations, as measured by total route mileage operated, are exclusively within the limits of a single city, and who by reason thereof is not a passenger stage corporation subject to the jurisdiction of the Public Utilities Commission.

(b) The exemption provided for in subdivision (a) shall not be applicable to motor vehicle fuel used by a charter-party carrier of passengers. The term “charter-party carrier of passengers” has the same meaning as that specified in Section 5360 of the Public Utilities Code and shall further include those transportation services described in subdivisions (a) and (e) of Section 5353 of the Public Utilities Code, if such transportation service is rendered as contract carriage and not as common carriage of passengers.

(c) There are in the State of California many private entities providing public transportation services for the transportation of people in vehicles other than buses under contract or agreement with local government, transit districts or local bus transit operators. It is the purpose of this section to provide relief from the payment of fuel tax for gasoline fuel for those private entities only for fuels consumed while providing these services.

(Amended by Stats. 1983, Ch. 46, Sec. 1.)