Decline of L.C.C. Tramcar Undertaking.
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£497 for Renewals and Reserve. The Motorbus, which was to have Found a Place only in a Museum, is Preferred by the Travelling Public.
The Highways Committee reports :— "The total expenditure on capital account lip to 31st March amounted to 212,618,843, and it is estimated that a further sum of about £1,500,000 will be required to complete the work of electrification and the construction of authorized lines, making a total capital outlay of about £14,100,000.
" The capital estimates for 1913-14 provide for expenditure on tramways of £920,400, in addition to a certain sum in respect of lines not yet authorized, and if the expenditure reaches thie amount there will remain to be expended after the end of the present financial year about £600,000 in respect of schemes already undertaken or authorized, which shows that rapid progress has been and is being made towards the completion of the work of reconstruction.
Income during the year and working expenses were " The total operating expenses for electric traction were £1,460,227 16s. 104., including £5911 2e. 8d. for special charges. or 6.62d. a car mile run, as compared with 6.63d. a car mile in 1911-12. The total working expenses in connection with horse traction amounted to £52,447 18e. 9c1., or 11.91d. a ear mile run. The total receipts in respect of electric traction amounted to .£2,213.306 12s. 2d. or 10.041. a car mile run, as compared with 11_29d. for 1911:-12. From lines operated by horse traction the total -receipts amounted to £38,422 lls., or 8.73d. a car mile run, as compared with 8.81d. for 1911-12."
Interest and debt, charges are £735,555; only £497 is carried to renewals account, and nothing to reserve. "The following additional facts with regard to the tramways may be of interest to the Council. The svetem in operation on 1st April, 1912, included about 132 miles of electric tramways, and during the year a further length of about seven miles was opened, making a total of about 139 miles.
" Passengers carried and car miles during the year were :— Electric Horse Traction. Traction. Total. No. of passengers ... 501,102,149 11,550,504 512,652,653 No. of car miles run 52,886,623 1,056,481 5.3,943,104 " The most striking feature of the accounts is the great falling off in the gross traffic receipts as well as the receipts a ear mile compared with previous years. We submit a table of the average electric track miles open, receipts a mile of track, receipts a car mile run, and the gross traffic receipts :—
" Althougle3les-rapction in receipts in 1912-13 is accernpanied by an irterdifeeln the length of track open, it has to be borne in mind that many lines which have been added in recent years to the electric tramway system are not of a highly remunerative character. The fact remains, however, that a new factor has arisen during the last year or two with which the Council has eeriouslv to reckon in its efforts to maintain the tramways undertaking on a sound financial basis. We refer to the very great increase in the competition which the tramway have to meet from the motor-omnibus undertakings; Many of ' the tramway routes upon which formerly no omnibuses were run have now been provided with motor-omtlattes4;areie es, while on other routes old services have been inereased.and extended to ether traffic points. The result has been a diminution in the traffic using the tramways on intermediate stageeef routes, and also a lose of overlapping traffic in consequence of omnibus services reaching _ traffic centres beyond tramway termini.
"Efforts must be made to overcome the disadvantage under which the tramways suffer through not being able on many of the routes to carry passengers to their desired destination.
In this reepect competing services in London occupy a very much more favourable position, and there can he no doubt that the present condition of affairs in this respect hampers the tramways most seriously in their work. This difficulty would be met as regards many of the tramway routes if the preeent termini could be linked up with one another or else the tramwaye extended to better-recognized traffic points, and the question is receiving the most careful consideration. It will not, be possible, owing to the great amount of work which will have to be done in the matter, to present a full scheme in time for submission to Parliament in the session of 1914, but we hope to do so for the following session. In the meantime we have under consideration certain proposals of this nature of a specially urgent character with a view to their inclusion in a Bill to be promoted in the session of 1914.
" Various comparisons have from time to time been made as regards the financial advantages of the two methods of trac tion, tramcar and motor-omnibus, and we woeld again draw attention to the important particulars in regard to which the omnibus services occupy a privileged position. In the first place, the motor-omnibus companies are net liable, as the Council is, to pay rates for the occupation of the road on which the omnibuses run. The amount paid by the Council under this head in 1912-13 amounted to £98,273. In addi tion to the amount paid for rates on permanent way very considerable expenditure has been incurred by the Council in connection with the maintenance of paving along the tramway routes which would have to be borne by the local authorities if no tramways had been constructed. This, it must be re membered, is despite the fact that the tramcars themselves
do not contribute towards the wear of the paving which gives rise to this expenditure. The rates on the lines alone repre
sent an average relief to the rates of London amounting to over d. in the L. [What about the extra wear of the side portions, due to concentration there of ordinary wheeled traffic, whieh areas are wholly repairable by the borough councils?—Em.] " There is the further point that the tramways account is charged with a considerable portion of the cost of effecting improvements where these are carried out along tramway routes. The amount chargeable to the tramways account in this respect under resolutions already passed by the Council is £807,302, of which £567,167 has already been so charged up to 31st March, 1913, while in addition the amount estimated to have been paid to tramway companies (as part of the purchase money for their undertakings) in respect of the expenditure incurred by them on street improvements is £40,576.
" In many cases the omnibus companies take advantage, for the purposes of the operation of their omnibuses, of the
widening of existing and the provision of new thoroughfares which have been carried out partly at. the expense of the tramways undertaking. In other cases the Council, either
alone or in conjunction with other local authorities, effects improvements which are admittedly necessitated by the increase of motor-omnibus, traffic, but no part of the cost thereof falls upon the omnibus undertakings. A case in point is that of Leadenhall Street, and there are others which could be mentioned.
"One other factor which has an important bearing on the financial comparison between these two systems of traction is the question of all-night car services and workmen's fares. The omnibus companies provide no facilities in these respects. On the other hand the Council maintains all-night services on a large number of important routes whch are of
the greatest value to certain sections of the public, and further, it provides workmen's car services from 4 a.m. onwards all over the system at a fare of 1d. single and 2d. return for journeys of as much as nine miles in each direction. We feel very strongly that while ibis the duty of the tramways authority to provide these facilities for the working classes, it is even more the duty of the omnibus companies, who possess so many other special advantages, to bear their share in the burden of this public eerviee,"
TIVe have so often traversed these pleas. The tramcars enjoy the monopoly of the steel rail and the steel wheel, and they must pay for it. The motorbuses win on their merits they have no monopoly!—E.]