Motorbus Prospects in London.
Page 1
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
We confined our last week's references to Scotland Yard's new regulations to an analysis of the principal new features : there has, since then, been time for us to consider their likely effect upon the manufacturer and the existing or prospective owner of motor stage-carriages which are intended for use in the Metropolis. They are of more than Metropolitan interest, as experience proves that--rightly or wrongly—Provincial authorities pay much heed to what London does in these matters. The fresh " notice " is not likely immediately to attract large amounts of capital to a depressed branch of the carrying trade, but we see no reason to regard even this latest collartion of non-specific yet arbitrary conditions in the light of a purposely-repressive set of rules. It is nothing of the kind. Sir Edward Henry and his advisers in the Public Carriage Office have yielded in respect of a greater unladen weight than 3i tons, upon which point present-day proprietors and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders were heard at length : in doing that, they have shown a degree of intelligence which has not yet asserted itself either in Parliament or at the Local Government Board. Many have been the pleas, since those which were first put forward in the report of the judges upon the 1898 trials at Liverpool, for an official recognition of the fact that it is the total weight and its distribution that is of external effect, yet it is only now—after II years of insistence—that the truth of the contention has been admitted. One result should be greater latitude for designers and makers, whilst the commercial need for a sufficient proportion of useful load must put to rights any, development of "freak " or excessively-heavy vehicles. It is of no practical interest to the man in the street or to the road authority, subject to proper suspension, whether 3-} or 44. tons of the maximum allowed be tare, i.e., the unladen weight, but the absence of any alternative to the earlier proposition of a 3i-tan limit of tare could not fail to have caused hardship to the constructor whose vehicles came out "just too heavy." Another of the earliest results should be the presentation of new types of bodies. Nobody has yet satisfactorily explained why omnibus passengers have for so long had to endure the survival of Shillibeer's inside seating disposition, but the enterprise of Mr. A. C. Clifford, the general manager of the Metropolitan Steam Omnibus Co., has been amply rewarded by the marked public approval of the garden-seating arrangement which is peculiar to the inside planning of his Darracq-Serpollet vehicles. It is obviously more comfortable to be able to travel with an outlook in the direction of motion, than to be puzzled in an effort to simulate a disinterested gaze between the heads of passengers on the facing seat which runs longitudinally. Who has not experienced the feel
ing? This matter of the passenger's convenience and comfort is solid justification for radical departures from parallel seating along the sides of the bodies, and we hope new vehicles will be constructed with all, or nearly all, of the inside seats laid transversely. All such changes should be ot great interest, but come some must. We fail to see that the single-decker will predominate, and electrictramcar practice has proved the vital necessity for the largest possible number of seats. Further, as all London motorbuses cannot be run at first-class fares, which have, so far, by the way, only been subjected to an ephemeral and unsustained test with a most-inadequate and infrequent service, it is largely left to the body-builder to make the best of the newly-created situation. The engineer's side of the job should not be imperilled. It is one thing to produce a chassis which shall weigh, say, V, tons and carry a 34-seated body : it is quite another to maintain such a chassis on the basis of a working life of seven or more years, which length of service must be assured if dividends are to recur. It is conceivable, too, that troubles will arise over the references to experts, unless the parties concerned—the manufacturers and proprietors—are allowed a share in the nominations, as is customary in all arbitrations. Our original unfavourable view of the speed-alarm proposal was reiterated last week. The irony of to-day's position lies in the fact that there exists not much more than the suspicion of an inclination on the part of manufacturers to build motorbus chassis. We do not blame them for this hesitancy. "Once bitten, twice shy" has again been exemplified. They will, we, repeat, want to know what the body-builder can do, now that his share in the problem has been rendered more important by the six-ton limit of gross weight with particular axle-loads, and, if chances of trade are not to be missed, the response to that desire should be immediate. There are, notwithstanding the common cause of the wry face, some directors in London who have the money available for additional purchases : the makers who establish their lead under the 1909 notice will get those orders, and the others that will be influenced by them. The prospects for new undertakings of moderate size, by which we mean the ownership of not more than 100 vehicles, are much brighter than they were in the boom year of 1906: so many excrescences and misconceptions are out of the way ; the public at large has entirely forgotten its period of antipathy ; fuel supplies are secure; much " running" experience has been accumulated ; the " tubes " require more and more feeding ; demands for new connecting services arise monthly ; Greater London is growing all the time.
We forecast the general retention of the double-deck model, owing to the revenue value of the outside seats from the sightseer's standpoint, and we also state our firm belief in the scope for new companies which are moderately capitalized and conducted without heavy administration charges. Let those for whom a fair business return possesses sufficient attraction note this opinion : London motorbuses have been through the stage of "proving out," but London motorcabs have barely entered upon it.