Collection and Delivery Services
Page 70
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by three-wheeler
THE motorcycle and sidecar combination or three-wheeler offers the cheapest form of delivery service where the loads range from 2 cwt. • to 5 cwt., and where the service is intermittent. Thus, it will be seen, it is well suited to small businesses.
It has the advantage, also, that the labour costs of operation are small, for the vehicle can be put in the hands of a youth at a youth's scale of wages. rurther, the driver need not be a wholetime driver but may be employed on other work.
Economy is also noticeable in that the cost of the vehicle is low and the maintenmice charges need not be at all heavy. The cost of garaging may be a mere trifle, as the vehicle can generally be housed on the trade
p remises. Taxation, too, is low when bearing in mind the loads carried and in comparison with the taxation of a four-wheeled, four-cylinder vehicle of greater power and carrying capacity.
Speed of delivery is, of course, a big point in favour of the sidecar combination. It may be operated quite easily at an average speed of 25 m.p.h. with a fuel consumption of a gallon for 40 miles or more, or a rate of .3d. per mile, and for lubricant less than .1d. per mile. It may be reckoned that the running costs are roughly id. per mile. The wages of the driver cannot be readily assessed, as they will vary according to conditions. Where the driver is not always employed in driving, a part of his wages will be a legitimate charge on the business generally and net on the delivery part of it.
Generally speaking a sidecar combination, used for delivery purposes, will seldom be fully loaded—especially is this so in the case of retail businesses. It may average one-third of its legitimate load over the whole service—and in some cases less. This consideration means a slight reduction in running costs—especially as regards fuel.
B52 eminently suitable for use in retail trades where customers demand speedy delivery to their residences.
Its scope, however, does not end there. In many wholesale businesses, where goods in small lots have to be delivered to retailers, the sidecar will be found the cheapest form of transport. Examples of such cases are the wholesale druggist business, the book-publishing trade and the distributing to retailers of haberdashery. It is very useful for executing specially urgent orders.
As auxiliaries to the larger motor vehicles the motorcycle combination will be found to be an economical proposition. In every commercialmotor service there are innumerable instances of small loads, too small for a large vehicle, requiring to be promptly dispatched. Many economies may be effected in this way.
In the case, for instance, of collection-and-delivery service between large towns, or between provincial towns and the Metropolis, the motorcycle carrier can be turned to account with excellent results. Two or three such vehicles can be used for collecting parcels and bringing them to a central receiving depot to be there transferred to the big vehicles for transport to the Metropolis, and there again a small fleet of motorcycle outfits can be used to deliver the loads in the various urban and suburban districts.
In this way the big vehicle is relieved of tackling short journeys to deliver 8ma1l parcels and can be employed on long-distance work with big loads, thus greatly reducing the transport cost: A good opportunity for such working can be found in the case of the Northampton shoe industry, where a manufacturer can load a big vehicle with goods for delivery to a large town and have the various lots sent out from a central receiving depot by motorcycle box carriers thus expediting .deliveries.
The class of motorcycle suitable for commercial work will be the simplest and most durable. The sports type will naturally be taboo. The best machine is the one most easily kept in order and capable of long use with little attention. The single-eylindered, side-valve engine of MO c.c. or 500 c.c. has much to recommend it. It should be shod with oversize tyres.
The make should be one of repute and especially one of which the makers are able to give prompt supply of spares; gOod local service depots are vital