A PARTY of Colonial Police Commissioners was recently being transported through
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London on a police van of the type in which the occupants face each other on longitudinal seats and can be seen from the exterior. Crossing Westminster Bridgethe Commissioners were somewhat amused, if not actually embarrassed, when, while arrested in the traffic next to a motorbus, someone on the bus called out, "Look at those convicts! " and the passengers of the crowded bus gazed with great interest at the Commissioners and discussed their presumed criminal tendencies.
CHASSIS components which, through wear, have outlived their period of use, or which would be expensive to maintain, are sometimes put to strange service. An unusual employment for disused brake drums and disc wheels has been adopted by a New York bus-operating concern, which mounts its pedestal signs, showing bus stops and bus-parking places, on such components. The original base of the sign, which is several feet high, is welded to the wheel or drum, thus giving a stout connection between the two B18 LONDON'S Under ground group of passenger transport undertakings, which includes the L.G.O. Co., Ltd., has made protracted experiments with many kinds of ticketissuing machine, and at present some machines of a certain make are undergoing tests in service on the buses, trams, and Underground railway. At Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus stations on the " tube " a man carrying one of these 2i-lb. outfits walks about, issuing tickets to those in a hurry.
SOME interesting statements concerning traffic. were contained in a paper read recently before the Omnibus Society by Mr. H. Watson.
The author pointed out that trams retard fast traffic wherever they cannot be passed at stops on either side. The percentage of retardation caused can be easily calculated. On a 32-ft. suburban road with little or no parking a three-minute service is not likely to cause more than a 3 per cent. delay, but with heavy parking, which may close the street flanks, and much on-coming traffic, the delay is cumulative, and may be appreciably more than that caused by buses, which can turn into the kerb and release traffic to go forward. In the worst cases traffic moves at ,train speed, and this condition is sometimes reached in provincial cities.
THERE have been criticisms of the position and number of light signals, such as those employed in Oxford Street, London. This particular system involves four posts for a straightforward crossroads. In Berlin, on the other hand, a single indicator, hanging fairly high in the centre of the cross-roads, is used, and from observations we have made this appears to be even more effective and far more easily seen than the separate posts. There is the additional advantage that with one apparatus there is not so much liability to failure. ONE of the difficulties of running motor vehicles through tunnels is the vitiation of the atmosphere. At one time, for instance, Black-wall Tunnel, London, was very bad in this respect, but considerable improvements were made last year. For 1931 the average carbon-monoxide content of the tunnel was 9.2 parts in 100,000, as compared with 21.5 parts in 100,000 in 1930. Only two of the 104 samples contained more than the recommended maximum figure of 20 parts in 100,000, as against 39 in 1930. A similar improvement was shown in the suspendedmatter content of the air, the average for 1931 being 4.0 on Owen's fog-shade scale, compared with 6.2 in 1930. One of the contributory factors is improvement in combustion efficiency.