Motor Omnibus Management.
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Boards of directors of motor omnibus companies are, in several cases which have come under our notice, jeopardising the interests of their shareholders by unnecessarily hamperingtheir operating engineers. The day has not yet arrived when the practice of running motor omnibuses under public service conditions has become standardised in sufficient particulars to bear excessive formalities, not to say red. tape, in the methods of control. If the management of a company is not satisfied with its engineer, let it seek another. A state of hopeless confusion alone can obtain when a house is divided against itself. There must be confidence in the executive officer who has charge of the running shed, and who has accepted the onerous duty of keeping the machines in service. This responsible man should be given a relatively free hand : he should be allowed to work out his own and his company's salvation. It is one thing, no doubt, Lo buy parts in the cheapest market, but if the obtaining of tenders, instead of accepting the charges which are demanded by the builder of the vehicles, with a resulting fractional saving in price, means that even one vehicle has to be laid up in the depot for a couple of days, the interests of the shareholders are not served by such procedure. Another vital matter is the unending demands of the management and traffic department that more and more vehicles shall be kept on the road, with apparent disregard of the fact that they are only staving off disaster by " running the machines to death." It is not for us to do more than to give a general warning that a catastrophe is in store for companies which are running on these lines, and we must content ourselves by repeating a warning—already sounded in our pages—that the success of operatingcompanies, generally, depends upon sound management and that alone. When the crash comes, in respect of one or more of the companies, as it inevitably will, it must not be said of this journal that we have not several times, from the very beginning of our existence, drawn inferences, which are based upon experience of road haulage conditions. It is strict business supervision, coupled with unvarying co-operation between the engineering and traffic departments, and subject to a strong man at the head, that will command success.