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versus MOTORBUS
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what Wolverhampton thinks
operation does not stop here ; I have found by careful experiment, over a long period, that a considerable saving in current consumption can be effected by adopting regenerative motors in the buses, and these motors can well be run in conjunction with mercury rectifiers.
The recent years have shown the trolley vehicle to be a satisfactory and economical means for transport to employ, on its merits, where tramways and motorbuses have been employed in the past ; but, in addition, there are other advantages.
The low working costs of the Wolverhampton buses, for instance, include an amount of some 17,000 paid to the local rates, due to the assessment of poles, wires and cables. This money would not be payable by an operator of motorbuses and this is, therefore, an additional contribution to the national economy. Again, the use of electrical energy and the wider distribution of this helps towards the grid price reductions to all consumers.
In Wolverhampton we have converted more than 40 miles of route to this type of transport, we run 3,350,000 miles a year, and carry some 30,000,000 passengers at low fares. These routes are confined to a radius from the town centre of three miles to six miles. There is no reason, so far as the system is concerned, why it should be restricted. Now that electricity is available in outlying country districts the system could be extended, and, in my opinion, the motive power could be utilized for the transport of goods and for other vehicles, to the benefit of all concerned.
Wolverhampton .recently suggested obtaining additional Parliamentary powers to equip several of its longdistance motorbus routes, but the opposition of the outside authorities, mostly on zesthetic grounds, made it advisable to restrict our proposals to additional local routes and to one of the "best bedrooms," five miles away.
Some people may wonder why the trolley vehicle has not made greater headway than it has, when a town like Wolverhampton can show such successful working. The reasons are many and all are surmountable.
It was easy, at any rate, before the passing of the Road Traffic Act, to buy a motorbus, obtain a 5s. licence and run it on an old tramway or any other route. Only one company or one department was concerned. To substitute trolley-buses it was necessary to obtain Parliamentary powers. A Bill had to be deposited and the usual opposition, frivolous or otherwise, had to be met. The installation of the system entailed the close co-operation between the transport department and the legal, financial, roads and bridges, and electricity bodies, and the co-operation between these departments in various towns is not a constant quantity.
In Wolverhampton I have been particularly fortunate in this resped, having the help of not only €45
officials of other departments, but having a progressive chairman and committee, and a council united for the common good and not torn asunder by political feuds.
The installation of a trolley-vehicle system means the laying out of an engineering scheme, and not merely the purchase of a vehicle. Up to the middle of 1932 many undertakings were overcoming their difficulties and schemes were mooted in various • parts of the country, when enthusiasm was extinguished by that damp blanket the Salter Report. Uncertainty regarding the outcome of that most unfortunate document still exists, but I feel confident that the real intrinsic merits of the trolley-bus system, together with the national and local advantages to be gained by its adoption, will see a great inerease, within the next two or three years, in the number of authorities adopting it.
The repeated visits of our continental and colonial friends from all parts of the world show the interest
that is taken in the *undertaking. It Is to he hoped that those responsible for the good government of the country will realize that it is their duty immediately to remove any artificial barrier that is holding back free development, for it is an undoubted fact that the energy, ingenuity and courage of British manufacturers has placed them in the front rank of the world markets for the supply of vehicles and equipment necessary in the installation of a trolley-vehicle system.