"Park 'n Ride" to Keep Buses Moving
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by John Spencer Wills
STARTING with the short-term part of my terms of reference, it is heartening to note that for many companies 1960, in spite of the appalling weather, has been a better year than 1959. I see no reason why 1961 should not also be a successful year, but I think we must expect some further recession in the number of passengers and some pruning of services, especially in rural areas.
To meet ever-rising costs we have got to look to every economy we can, and once again, next year, I expect to see an increase in the number of one-man huses, which have already proved so successful. The time lost in collecting fares has proved less than was at first anticipated, and many drivers have said how happy they are with this new arrangement, not only because they receive the extra 15 percent; on their wages, but also because it puts them in closer personal touch with their passengers.
• We have been pressing the Ministry of Transport very hard for an increase in " box " dimensions, and it now seems likely that in 1961 manufacturers will be able to start production of the first 36-ft. by 8-ft. 2-in. vehicles. The increase in productivity obtained when these vehicles can be put into service will, I hope, do much to balance the likely loss of revenue to which I have referred.
As to the long-term prospects of our industry it would be dangerous to draw too hasty deductions from the fact that both passengers and mileage have been steadily receding ever since 1955. Nineteen-fifty-five was a peak year, the result largely of a post-war shortage of buses and private motorcars, and to see the matter in its true perspective we must go back to 1938, as it is a fact that in 1960 the buses are carrying almost half as many again the number of passengers that they were in that year.
Many More Workmen The reason is not far to seek: there is more employment: there has been great expansion in all forms of industry, so that there are many more factories—which means that there are many more workmen to carry to work; and the standard of living has substantially improved, which means that the common man has developed travelling habits on a much greater and more ambitious scale than before the war—today, for example, he goes abroad in his thousands.
The two main factors causing the downward trend which has been evident since. 1955 are; first, television, which keeps many people at home in the evenings and at weekends; and, secondly (and more important) the enormous growth of private transport, which has, not unnaturally, so far made itself felt to the greatest extent in rural areas. This has naturally led to a severe contraction in bus services in those areas, and though no cuts of this nature are made without the most careful consideration, it is most disheartening that a Government which professedly desires to see the maintenance of an adequate system of bus services in rural areas still insists upon maintaining an artificial addition to our operating costs of something like 10 per cent. I refer to fuel tax. But although the loss of passengers is so far mainly in terms of percentage in the rural areas, as might be expected, the urban and semiurban services are also beginning to feel the draught.
I am constantly being asked whether I can see any future at all for the bus when the private motorcar has reached the stage where there is one car for, say, every two adults, as in the U.S.A. My short answer to this is, "yes," which I say with confidence.
It must be remembered that a high percentage of all passenger journeys, whether by car or by bus, begin and end in a town or city. Broadly speaking, I expect the roads and the motorways of the future to cater reasonably adequately for the cars of the future between the towns and the cities, but the position inside the towns and cities themselves is another matter altogether. Even today there are far too many cars for the average city to absorb without two periods of acute indigestion every day.
Strike Chaos Recent rail strikes and bus strikes in London have pro vided a powerful illustration of the chaos which is created if everyone tries to make up for the lack of public transport by coming in by motorcar—yet the number of cars being licensed every year is increasing enormously. More by-passes for through traffic will certainly help, but even then it is obvious that, unless something is done, a stage of standstill will soon be reached. I should not like to suggest a legal ban on cars coming into the cities; I think the present Government policy of discouragement by parking meters is probably the right one in the present climate of popular opinion, but very soon the motorist (at this stage almost identical with the general public) will himself be looking critically at a line of 100 cars covering over half a mile and carrying only 150 passengers. and he will be saying: "Two buses could have taken the lot."
This brings me to the policy of providing large underground or multi-storey car parks, as a means of easing congestion in the streets. I am a motorist as well as a busman, and I must be the first to admit that a city dosed to all motorcars would be a miserable city indeed. But having said that I must also point out the potential dangers of undue reliance upon this solution. By all means build your large car parks, but only if (and this is a very big " if ") restrictions upon parking in the streets are rigidly enforced. Unless this condition is fulfilled, the only result will be that there will be more cars than ever coming into the city, and the congestion will be far worse than before.
I should make it plain that when I refer to restrictions upon car parking, I include the economic restriction or discouragement represented by a really high fee registered on the parking meter, as I think it is in this method of economic sanction that lies the best solution to the problem. Even a high fee is unlikely to be enough to remunerate the capital invested in the space occupied. I should expect the parking meter charges to be scaled down in proportion to their distance from the centre of the city, and calculated upon the basis that when a motorist has reached a distance at which he feels he can afford to pay— at or near the perimeter of the city—it will be too far for him to walk and he will have to use public transport.
I therefore visualize large, cheap car parks on the perimeters of the cities of the future, with fast moving public transport into the city centres. The Americans call this: " Park'n ride." If this broad plan is adopted, and I can see no practical or acceptable alternative, it follows that the bus, far from being outdated, has a great future.
would only add that any attempt, in 1960, at making prophecies about the transport of the future must be quite unrealistic without mention of the air. Fifteen years ago we in the B.E.T. thought that the helicopter was the aircraft of the future and that it would shortly revolutionize all forms of transport. Whilst this may still well be true, our hopes that the very high running costs of this aircraft might be substantially reduced were not realized, and for this reason and others of a political nature we had to abandon our interest in this sphere after a year or two.
However, with the rapid development of vertical take-off and landing aircraft, it does seem a distinct possibility that aircraft of this description, capable of running at an economic cost, may be available in the not-too-distant future. In that case it might well be the V.T.O.L.s, rather than the motorcars, which will be parked on the perimeters, and their passengers who will take the bus into the city.