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A Quarter of a Million Commercial Vehicles!

10th April 1923, Page 1
10th April 1923
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Page 1, 10th April 1923 — A Quarter of a Million Commercial Vehicles!
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0 NE OF TILE outstanding advantages of the present -method of motor vehicle registration, is the .possibility which it affords for arriving at facts and statistics concerning the vehicles in use : throughout Great Britain. When it. is remembered that over 300,000 motor vehicles have, sincd registration was imposed by the Act of 1903, been registered in London, and that prior to flie Road Act of 1920 , only a very small number of registrations had been cancelled, whereas the number licensed in the metrepolis for the year, or for a part of the year, ending November 30th was 81,271, to which must be added an unknown quantity in respect of which 72,239 quarterly licences were. issued•during the year. (probably representing 48,000 vehicles), it will be seen that, at any rate, the figures, if still incomplete, are

approaching nearer to reliability. ' . .

, The growth Of the read transport industry during , 1922 was greater than some people had imagined, for, with bad trade affecting goods traffic and bad weather affecting passenger traffic; a falling off, if anything, had been expected. As a matter of fact, taking commercial goods vehicles, road locomotives, motor tractors and hackney vehicles, the yearly and 'part-yearly licences increased in Dumber from 175,338. in 1921 to 179,382 in 1922, whilst the total number of quarterly licences issued rose from 156,780-in 1921 to 227,460 in 1922. Any estimate of the number of vehicles represented by the. quarterly licences must be purely arbitrary,' which being the case we will give the details of our own figutes. We conclude that, in respect of commercial goods vehicles, the .114,963 quarterly licences concern about:, 31,000 vehicles. Of road locomotives, .1,098, -and of motor triactors, 405, were licensed in the third quarter, se, we will accept these as the maximum figures:the. figures for each of the other, quarters being smaller. Of hackney vehicles, 32,850, and of exempted vehicles, ' 45, were licensed in the second quarter, these being the 'highest totals in any quarter. We thus get a total of 65,308 in resPeet Of these vehicles, and arrive at a grand total of 244,690 commercial yehicleg licensed for the whole or part of the year 1922, to -which, however, may be added some unknown quantity, of vehicles taxed on horse-power and of motorcycles uSed for comniercial, purposes. It seems fair, therefore, , to ciaimahat there are a quarter of a_ million commercial vehicles running in the country:.

We Would, like to.. delve, deeper into some 'useful , details recently issued by the Minister of Transport covering this question, so as to enable us to compare the fleets in the various counties and county boroughs, but great difficulties would occur in setting proper values on the number of quarterly licences in each case. Probably the greatest curiosity is to be found in the columns headed " Exempt vehicles." These are fire-engines, ambulances, etc., and they total 11,593. The whole of Yorkshire has 296 of these exempted vehieles, Derbyshire 82, Glasgow 96, and Cornwall 55. Yet London has 1,899 and Middlesex 4,705! What they all are is a puzzle, unless all the foreign touring cars pass into the statistics of those two counties.

The Evil Effect of Defective Roads.

THAT THE ADVENT of fast and heavy transport has caused a serious and ever-increasing deterioration of the roads cannot be disputed ; the solutions suggested for this problem are, however, many and varied. It is becoming more and more obvious that a prohibitive cost would be involved in making the roads completely resistent to the attacks of the presentday heavy lorry, but one important point bearing on this matter does not appear to be generally recognized. We refer to the fact that the unladen weight of almost every type of heavy vehicie is a great deal higher than would be the case if the average road surface contained fewer pot-holes and corrugations. This is simply because the frame, wheels, axles, springs, transmission, etc., must be designed to cope with the worst conditions which may be met with. Hence it is clear that a vicious circle has been formed, in which the bad roads lead to increased tare weights, and these higher weights in turn increase the damage done to the roads. A practical solution, and one which we have for some time consistently advocated, is the multiplication of wheels and axles in order that the effect of axle-weight limitation shall not act in restriction of transport facilities. There is the likelihood of even sterner competition between road and rail in the near future, for the railway companies will make an effort to recover some of their lost traffic by means of rate revisions. The answer of the motor manufacturer, urged in the right direction by the demands of fleet operators, must he greater carrying capacity per unit of .standing charges. This result can be attained by the employment of multi-axled vehicles and by keeping them fully employed. It is easily demonstrable that a fleet of vehicles putting in a full weekly mileage will be run at just one half the cost per ton-mile incurred when it has a moderately slack week. One of the big London stores has recorded this difference in the running of its fleet in the week prior to Christmas and in the week after Christmas!

The Ever-virile Steam Wagon.

IN VIEW of the important meeting of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in London to-morrow (Wednesday) evening, when Mi. C. Le M. Goeselin and Mr. F. J. Bretherton will read papers dealing with the steam wagon, our special article, appearing in our centre and subsequent pages, will be found to possess particular interest. Our contributor " Hephaestus " is more than usually qualified to deal with the steam wagon from many years of study and practical operation of the type, and his criticisms of the overtype steamer and his suggestions for its improvement are the outcome of experience and, therefore,' are entitled to be received with considerable respect. Mr. Gosselin, in his remarks at to-morrow's meeting, will, we are certain, be fair and frank in his presentation of the usefulness and the limitations of the steam wagon. He has had sixteen years experience with it and will show that, even in this country —the one which gave it birth and where it is used

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more than in any other—the law is not over-generous in its treatment of the type. But, one is able to say that he steam wagon has. been greatly improved in many respects during the past few years, and we know of experiments now being carried out which will carry the typo still_ further along the road towards perfection.

Mr. Bretherton will deal with the matter from the point of view of the designer of one of these latest prodnetions; and he will disclose some valuable information which can only serve to accelerate the

development of the steam wagon. .

The Need for Improving the Springing of Commercial Vehicles.

0 NE OF the most difficult of the' many problems which face the designer of commercial vehicles is that of so arranging the springing that it shall be, so far as possible, equally efficient whether the vehicles be running empty, partly laden, or with

a full load. ,

In the majority of cases no attempts have been made to.meet these varying conditions of working, and the springs provided are supple enough to give the required deflection only when the full load is carried. Sometimes, in fact, they are unduly stiff even then, for the makers usually give them a. reserve of strength, in order to withstand the extra stresses imposed by overloading—a practice which, unfortunately, flourishes, in spite of the many warnings issued against it. It is probable that, for at least 75 per cent. of the mileage run by vehicles in active operation, they are either running light or only partly loaded. This means that good springing has to be sacrificed to meet a condition which only prevails for a period of comparatively short duration. Hard 'springs not only cause excessive vibration, and consequently rapid wear, but the pounding of the wheels on the road tends rapidly to disintegrate the road surface and to break up the foundations, thus • directly affecting the pockets of both the vehicle owner and the taxpayer—whether the latter be an owner or not. In the case of vehicles designed to carry passengers, the disadvantages are even greater, although the dif. ferenee in weight between a light and a fully laden passenger conveyance may not be so considerable as occurs with the vehicle designed to carry goods. The most important is to consider with such a conveyance as a bus s the comfort of the passengers; in the case of a coach the matter is not quite so pressing, as it is but rarely that it is run otherwise than with its full complement of passengers, but a bus—except during the peak hours—is not always full. On another page in this issue we make a jeferenee to the Bristol and Foster methods of utilizing: laminated springs in such a way that they automatically adjust themselves to the loads carried. • The method consists, briefly, in causing the springs to decrease their effective length as they decrease their camber, and the results obtained have proved highly satisfactory, both for passenger vehicles and heavy tractors. The amazing feature is that this increased efficiency is combined with a considerable reduction in the weight of each spring. It has been proved by careful experiments, using instruments especially designed for the purpose, that, the spring which automatically adjusts itself to the load actually causes much less shock, both to the road' and to the vehicle when a wheel drops into a pothole. When this occurs the spring automatically weakens as the wheel drops' and thus reduces the, hammering effect. On the rebound, or upward thrust,

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the shock s taken up gradually as the strength of the spring increases through its effective length being decreased. This action also tends to damp out the spring oscillations, which usually take place after the wheel has left the not-hole. Various other methods have been devised to enable lighter springs only to be used except when the vehicle is laden, and these usually take the form of some type of auxiliary spring, which gradually takes a bigger share of the weight as the lighter spring is depressed ; such devices are employed on the buses built by the Associated Equipment Co.. Ltd., but, in our opinion, there is still ample scope for further improvements in suspension to be made to save both the vehicle and the roadway.

An interesting article on the advantages of adjustable suspension was published last week in our associated journal, The Motor, to whi2h we refer those of our readers who are particularly interested in the matter, as dealt with from the..point, of view of the user of lighter vehicles.


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