'Nation would gain from bus standardization . . .
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. AND WE NEED NEW C AND U REGULATIONS' SAYS LIVERPOOL'S F.H. CL4YFON
• The vital relationship between the use of public transport on the one hand and the cost of providing highways for an increasing number of cars on the other was stressed by Mr. F. H. Clayton, deputy general manager of Liverpool City Transport, in an address to the Institute of Transport (Yorkshire Section) on Tuesday.
Calculations suggested that for every 1.000 passengers who could be persuaded to transfer from cars to public transport capital investments of the order of £1 m to £2m could be saved in respect of the road construction and redevelopment work in the larger cities. Town planners were formulating schemes for 10 to 20 years ahead and in his view, said Mr. Clayton, unless some research leading to greater standardization and general improvement was started, the bus was almost certainly going to lag behind other forms of transport and would continue to suffer the annual loss of passengers.
When the Local Government Operational Research Unit carried out an exercise on the choice of travel modes by individual workers in four English towns the results suggested that walking and waiting times associated with buses were the greatest deterrent to their use and that employment of cars was strongly .influenced by parking costs. Bus fares appeared to have little influence and the Unit concluded that the demand for bus travel was more sensitive to the level of service provided than to cost.
Starting from first principles, said Mr. Clayton, the most important consideration must be the passenger. It was possible by standardization to increase the attraction of bus travel.
He proposed that a small committee should be set up, to represent all operators, which would analyse advantages and disadvantages of designs available and draw conclusions regarding the next stage in standardization. The Ministry should be asked to co-operate and consideration should be given to employing consultants to visit the various authorities and to report on their findings. One of the greatest problems in analysing information from different sources was to ensure that the basic data was reliable, with identical standards being used in the collection of facts and figures. This Was one reason for making a single body responsible for the work.
With one-man operation there were varying set-ups for cash collection and ticket issuing and Mr. Clayton felt, again, that a critical analysis of the operations would be well worth while. Making the process simpler for the passengers, as well as easier for the driver, would not only speed up a service but make it more attractive to the users. One of the most frequent complaints they received in his own area, particularly from elderly passengers, related to the difficulty of entering and leaving the bus. Delays in boarding or alighting due to badly designed steps obviously had an adverse effect on one-man operation. Observations had been taken regarding the percentages of men and women using buses during off-peak periods. The conclusion that they drew was that to retain passengers the buses must be pleasing to women, specially in the lower saloon. Here again standardization could help in the layout of a vehicle, including luggage accommodation and storage for prams.
By rationalization in design manufacturers were setting the future pattern to some extent. One aspect of particular importance was that where makers specified alternative sources of supply the units and connections, either electrical or mechanical, should be interchangeable. On one batch of new buses he had encountered three different air compressors were used, none being completely exchangeable with the others. Such features caused endless trouble to the operator and were totally unnecessary if manufacturers made further progress towards standardization. Among other items requiring attention were road wheels (where there was a vast range of different off-sets), seating, saloon heaters, saloon lighting and door gears.
The Ministry of Transport might take a lead in putting their house in order by producing completely new Construction and Use Regulations if simplified these would help the entire industry. Priority should be given to new thinking on the design of bodies with a view to easier maintenance. Mechanical damage could be repaired in a matter of hours, or at the most days, but a bus costing £8,000 to E9,000 could be idle for perhaps two months while body repairs were effected. Why could not replacement sections be incorporated in the design ? Then a damaged section could be replaced and the bus put on the road while repairs could be carried out in a suitable jig on the workshop floor.
In the light of long-term needs, Mr. Clayton suggested that the Government should be encouraged to finance long-term design developments, bearing in mind its declared policy that public transport should in the future play an increasing part in the public and social life of the community.
He was suggesting that a further committee be set up including representatives of the Government, the manufacturers, and operators, to study the problems. to produce a suitable design and arrange for it to be made and tested in service. This might require six years and the range would be considered as standard for a further six years subject to minor modifications to correct any faults arising. During the second six-year period the committee would consider the next design range to be brought into production at the end of the period.
Such an arrangement, said Mr. Clayton, would enable the industry to produce a range of buses at the lowest possible cost as the design would be frozen for the six years and large-scale production techniques could be adopted. The scheme would overcome the possibility of stagnation being brought about by the standardization policy. Bearing in mind that legislation on bus design throughout the world was bringing a common basis nearer, a range thus produced would probably have a large overseas market.
In the course of a detailed review of the many variations in body design Mr. Clayton said that consideration should be given to whether the body frame should be made of steel or aluminium he doubted if it was essential to have both materials used and a good deal of cost could be saved by concentrating on one. With aluminium corrosion problems were overcome and the weight saving on a double-decker body was about 3cwt. Against this the cost was £75 greater, but if only the one metal was used the charge would tend to come down.