BY CAR TO OR FROM THE BUS INSTEAD OF THE TRAIN.
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Contributed by Edward S. Shrcgpnell-Smith, C.B.E., M.Inst.T.
IT
ME amazing cult of the light car, for which growth 1 hire-purchase is to be blamed or praised, is having many unforeseen consequenceS. Foremost amongst these is a marked direct transference of passenger traffic from rail to road. But only a small fraction of the whole light-car traffic is thus derived. Much of it is a new creation, almost a new race. Some of it is taken from the ubiquitous motorbus, of which the recruiting value is not yet acknowledged as is deserved by the manufacturers of small motorcars. Mr.'Sidney E. Garcke, chairman of the British Automobile Traction Co., Ltd., in the course of his speech to the shareholders quite recently, stated, inter alia, on this point of the effect of ear development upon motorbus revenues : "I think it safe to say that in regard to passenger transport the most serious road competition which the railways have to face is that 'associated with the use of the private car and motorcycle. This growing competition of the privately owned motorcar is the cause of some anxiety to our companies, and I am afraid we have not yet experienced the worst, as this country has not by any means reached saturation point in the matter of cheap cars and cycles."
Bus v. Car in America.
Like other economic factors, those of which Mr. Garcke spoke are of dual effect. All their influences are not bad for the bus-owner. In America, as we know, there are some eight times as many cars in relation to the population as there are in Britain. Yet the operation of motorbuses is a thriving industry in the United States, although basic fares and methods differ greatly from those which obtain in Britain. A high incidence of car-ownership may not, therefore, be of serious import for the British bus industry. Come it will, and that a close watch upon further extensions of individual small-car ownership is advisable must now be appreciated.
How the Private Car is Used Commercially.
New uses for private cars are " discovered " almost daily. Their reservation for recreation is a thing of the past. I estimate that a minimum of 10 per cent. of cars taxed by horse-power and of motorcycles are used every day for essentially commercial purposes. They carry live-stock, fruit, flowers, vegetables, jewellery, pictures, works of art, urgent 'goods of all classes in small lots (say, up to 5 cwt.), luggage of varied descriptions which is personal to the owner in a much wider sense than the railways allow, domestic servants, office and professional staffs, specialized workers and assistants, travellers' samples, electric and wireless renewals, and a host of things which I do not attempt to enumerate. These multifaribus uses are at the hands of private owners who also have agricultural, commercial, legal, medical, political, surgical or other forms of professional and semi-professional work to perform. The aggregate incursion of private cars so used into the range of transportation nominally and supposedly reServed for railways and commercial motors to serve is literally enormous. It more than justifies my simple calculation that one-tenth of the gross revenue derived from all owners of cars and cycles should be treated as commercial and added to the more evident revenues for the Road Fund derived from goods and hackney vehicles per se.
I believe, however, that a new use for private cars is developing, and will continue to expand in a manner which may prove to bring a measure of compensation l0 the bus owner. It has come under my notice with increasing frequency of late. I refer to the interesting practice of taking, or conversely of meeting, friends by car to the bus, or off the bus, instead of to or off the train.
Meetings at the Cross-roads.
It is usual to make cross-roads timing-points in a motorbus service. There are, of course, many other published and observed timing points on all routes. These are the equivalent, as regards known times, of railway stations. There may be shelter at only a few of them, but that does not matter to the intending bus passenger who is being conveyed or met by car. In absolute contradistinction to the railway, the unfettered opportunity also exists to meet a motorbus at any intermediate point on the highway and there to deliver or receive one's friend or friends, One Cannot Miss a Bus.
Meetings at a cross-roads, or at a T-road, or elsewhere, as between a motorcar and a motorbus, possess a further advantage which the train fails to provide. If, in going to catch the bus, the car conveying one's friend happens to be a minute or two late, it is possible to follow and to overtake. The road differs from the railway track in that a car can and may run on it. This access and the margin of time thus guaranteed are real attractions in respect of such connections.
When I wrote in The Commercial Motor of November Oth last as to the 1027 characteristic being "On with the Connections," the possibilities with which I am now concerned were not treated. There is no limit to them. To the car-owner they offer greater frequency of use than does the railway station, saved mileage and a more pleasant and less-crowded moans of conveyance for his friend or friends. Guests and hosts can the more easily choose times of arrival and departure.
The bus may or may not be suitable for long connecting journeys. It may sometimes not be so quick as the train, if one be near a main-line station. Despite these exceptions, which I admit will exist, car owners who are hosts and local motorbus owners who want More traffic have available a unique chance of suiting one another.
Why go to the station? The bus is near. The train is dear, anyhow, because, as a rule, people nowadays cannot afford to hang about to fit the few-and-farbetween times of branch lines.
The closer co-ordination, by personal and natural selection, between individual car-owners in the country and local bus times is an assured happening. The practice will grow. It should be cultivated by instructions to motorbus drivers and conductors to be on the alert for cars whose drivers hail them en route. It may encourage the railway companies to scream, but pity the chances of any Government which conspires with the railway companiet in their newly fledged scheme for 'ordering the public to use their, trains.