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The Industry Progresses
Page 71
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ALTHOUGH the numher of operators of passenger vehicles is declining, the latest statistics show increases in revenue, vehicle mileage, passenger journeys and in the total of coaches and buses owned. The prosperity of the business generally is improving, but the effects of the .rail way attacks on express services once a flourishing section of the industry—are showing themselves in reduced receipts. In all other departments—stage services, excursions and tours, and contract operation—revenue is on the upgrade and the outlook is encouraging.
To say that the bus is essential to the maintenance of commerce and industry at their present level is t6 speak . in platitudes, but the fact is brought home by our investigation of London's peak-load problems (reported in this issue). Buses play a huge part in the movement of 9,800,000 passengers daily, carrying some 60 per cent, of the Board's total traffic. This preference for the bus by workers and pleasure-seekers alike is exhibited all over the country, and nothing can assail its position. Almost every week a local authority abandons tramways in favour of the more modern system of transport, to the advantage of the municipal revenue and of the public. The position of the express service, however, is not so promising. The restriction of duplication on extreme distance services is calculated to shake the public confidence in road travel. Moreover, the fare-cutting tactics of the railways are seriously affecting express-service operators, who are powerless to retaliate. It is encouraging to find that, in the face of such uneconomic competition, road excursions and tours are not losing their popularity.
One of the brightest sections of the industry is that responsible for extended tours. Each year sees an increase in patronage and in the variety of facilities offered. The coach tour has become recognized as providing one of the most pleasant of holidays.
Legislation continues to be oppressive in several respects. The multitudinous rules and orders require collation, more elasticity in legal hours of work is necessary to economic operation, and other amendments to the 1930 Act are needed to permit maximum service to be rendered to the public. Most urgent of all is the need for curtailing the powers of the railways to object wholesale to applications for licences or variations, and to undercut agreed road charges. The majority of the troubles can be traced to this source.