Municipal and Private Transport Mergers
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ATENDENCY is developing,, at' least where operation is not entirely successful, for municipal authorities to .merge their transport undertakings with those of important bus companies. Such an event has recently taken place at Keighley, plans • are in hand for a similar arrangement to be entered into at Brighton, whilst it is believed that York will also make a move in this direction. A typical arrangement is for a new company to be formed, embodying the systems of the two parties and controlled by a board of directors, with equal representation for the two interests, , or with a majority in favour of the private organization. In the latter case a larger share of the profits, which are pooled, would be taken by the company.
Such a scheme places the provision of passenger transport largely in the hands of private enterprise, relieving the municipality of the responsibility and enabling it to devote its attention to local administration proper, which is, after all, the true function of a public body. Moreover, the arrangement obviates the evil of artificially inflated fares for the protection of municipal undertakings, fares which the public cannot at present afford to pay and which it much resents.
It is also probable that the merger of private and municipal interests would speed up the abandonment of tramways, which are usually the cause of any loss sustained by a corporation transport undertaking, besides being a cause of much traffic congestion.
The scheme should eliminate uneconomic competition and permit the full advantages of co-ordinated working to be reaped, whilst there should be little likelihood of the " monopoly " causing unreasonable increases in fares, because it is part of the duty of the Traffic Commissioners to ensure that excessive demands are not made upon the public. Moreover, only a proportion of any deficit on the year's working would have to be made good by the ratepayers.
Transport Economy in Winter.
COLDER weather is now upon us. One of 1.-1 its common effects is an increase in operating costs, but much can be done to counter this. Foremost is the question of heavier fuel con sumption ; a cold engine is notoriously wasteful. Our road tests have shown that due attention to the maintenance of correct and adequate water temperature can save so much as 10 per cent. in fuel bills. Up-to-date vehicles are usually equipped with some means for checking radiation until the optimum heat has been attained, but older machines can have their radiators partially blanked, with great advantage in many cases.
Another detrimental effect of cold running is increased wear of cylinders and pistons, occasioned by " wet " fuel finding its way into the combustion chambers. Hot spots or hot-air intakes can easily be arranged to obviate this evil.
Low temperature causes oil temporarily to become too viscous ; in these circumstances " revving " of the engine is harmful, whilst too slow a rate of rotation immediately after starting also is bad. The useful via media is to set the engine to run at about 600 r.p.m. at first and to remember that oil circulation does not become fully effective for at least one minute-or longer in extremely cold weather. Another point is that starter batteries have a somewhat lower efficiency in cold weather.
The moral is obvious ; if the utmost efficiency is to be obtained, fleet engineers must cheek conditions obtaining from time to time and instruct accordingly. Forethought is much cheaper than retrospection.