BUSES TAKE ONE HALF OF WEMBLEY TRAFFIC.
Page 9
Page 10
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
How the London General Omnibus Co., Ltd., has Prepared its Bus Station to Deal Daily with 200,000 Visitors to the British Empire Exhibition.
WHIT-MONDAY saw the chief motorbus station for the British Empire Exhibition . that at the south-west entrance—brought into full operation, with its eight loading platforms, some under cover, receiving and despatching passengers at a speed which would permit buses to depart every fifteen seconds. Our own feeling about the bus station is that it. has saved the entrance of the Exhibition from looking like that of a third-rate provincial. show. The entrance to any Royal Agricultural Show of recent years has possessed a hundred times more dignity and suggested greater importance behind it -than . that erected for the Exhibition devised to bring home to Britons and foreigners alike the greatness of the Empire. The bus station introduces, into an unattractive forecourt of a couple of acres, a busy scene full of life and colour and dignity, partially hiding the inartistic advertisement hoarding through gaps in which people pass into the grounds. The platforms are almost bus-step high—a little higher than a pavement kerbing—the roofing over the majority of them is shapely and artistic, andwith the masts and streamers there, is presented a decorative scheme in bright colours that Provides the improvement of which we speak. At the expense of the Lonaon , General Omnibus Co., Ltd., the forecourt has been covered with concrete, nearly 2,000 tonsof cement and other materials having been used, the result being excellent, but here again a little forethought on the part of those responsible for selecting the site of the main entrance would have been an advantage, for the entrances are set ii foot or two below the level of the main road. :Hence, there is a fall towards the Exhibition which causes the forecourt in wet weather to drain towards the pavement just where the queues, waiting to dribble,through the narrow, congested turnstiles, have to gather. We saw on Whit-Tuesday a river nearly 3 ft. wide along the gutters, and thought what a clever idea it was.
The bus station thus gets the best. of the whole arrangement and again helps to save the situation.
for the passengers alight on the higher ground and, at least., can pick their way across the pools and streams. These things or something equivalent have always happened at exhibitions, and probably always will, and it is difficult to find any other reason except -the lack of imagination of which the British are wont to beaccbsed.
On each .side of the centre of the entrance forecourt is constructed a group: of four -platforms, the aPproximate. length of. each being .70 ft. ,The plan. which -vie published in our issue of April. 26th -last (page . 43) shows a curious absence of symmetry a-bout this forecourt, for. which there is probably a reason. The four platforms . on the northern side of the court are brought close to, and nearly parallel with, the pavement and railing which divides the forecourt into two. The other four platforms are taken over to the southern end of the forecourt. But, except on -paper, this unsymmetrical arrangement, in the absence of anything impressive about the entrance buildings, does not seem to matter.
All buses enter at the northern end, unload either at the platforms or before entering the bays between the platforms, and then depart by the souThern entrance, so reducing to a minimum the crossing of traffic streams. Tbria:entrance and exit are each 32 ft. wide, whilst there are a central entrance and exit for other traffic. Two buses are able to stand at each platform, so that normally eight streams of bus traffic can emerge, but on Whit-Monday further streams were lined up off the platforms until no fewer than 16 were formed and 32 buses were loading at a time and moving off at intervals of 15 seconds. The normal daily capacity of the bus. station is 800 buses, but on Whit-Monday 1,000 buses entered and left, each making a number of journeys. The total number of passengers carried to the Exhibition by bus was 160,000, the number on the previous Saturday being 100,000, and it is safe to say, that a larger number returned by night because so many feared trouble and delay on the railways.
• Wembley can be reached by any one . of 13 bus services radiating to all parts of London, and in order that passengers may easily find the starting platform for the required bus, each platform end has a high mast supporting direction boards showing in each case the service number and destination of the buses leaving that platform. On tremendously busy days (such as bank holidays, etc.), when queues must form and the identity of each queue be lost at its tail (if a queue can possess a tail!), it is proposed to form them up on the ground inside of the entrance building, passing the head of each queue out to the appropriate platform as room is made. Otherwise the crowd of waiting people in the forecourt can he nothing but a solid mass imperilled by the arrival and departure of private ear traffic. The " General " inquiry office is next to the Exhibition entrances and faces the platforms. The traffic controller stationed here is in telephonic communication with the central controller at Leicester Square, and he is able at any moment to arrange for the increase or decrease of bus flow to meet traffic requirements. There is an interpreter in this office, and he finds that his day is mainly taken -up in answering question concerning the Exhibition, filling in odd moments in dealing with a few queries about the buses. The fact of the matter is that the publicity service of the London General Omnibus Co. is so good and so thorough that few questions remain to be put.
The only advertisements of the bus service on the station are two futuristic paintings, each 20 ft. by '7 ft., which form screens at each side of the fore_ court. They are by Mr. W. Roberts and Mr. Neville ewis, and they depict in a humorous way the steady advancement of London's bus system over a period of 20 years. Some of the figures (human and animal) will create amusement and criticism : the other figures that can be abstracted from these paintings are beyond criticism and will create admiration. Some of them are quite suitable for the columns of a serious journal like The Commercial otor, , and are here given.
In 1903, 3,650 buses, involving the employment of 45,000 horses, covered 242 route-miles of London's streets and carried 460,000,000 passengers. In 1913, 3,000 motorbuses covered 445 route-miles and carried 676,000,000 passengers. In 1923, 4,300 motorbuses covered 809 route-miles and carried 1,214,000,000 passengers. In that year 156 different routes were traversed, 26000 men were employed, 18,1 million gallons of petrol were consumed, and 2323,560 was
aid in taxes. During the three days of the last
hitsun holiday no fewer than 12,804,000 passengers were carried, which is an increase of 3,185,000 over the figures for.-Whitsun of 1923: The biggest day's work was on Saturday, when the record number of 5,300,000 passengers travelled on the L.G.O.C. buses. On Sunday the figure was 3,024,000 and on Monday 4,480,000. In addition to these must be added the people who travelled by the company's motor coaches, but their numbers would appear small if any attempt were made to corapare the coach and bus traffic.
On Whit-Monday the bus services were continued long after the prearranged hour for dosing down. There was a good deal of exaggeration in the daily Press concerning the visitors who did not get away from the Exhibition until 1 a.rn: and were seen walking wearily homewards at 3 a.m. We are assured by the controllers of the bus services that every visitor who wanted to use the bus faailities was picked up, and none was left stranded. We make the suggestion (in all humility, let it be added) that on future " big " days some buses should turn, short of the terminus, so that they might pick up passengers from points removed from the Exhibition, who, because every bus starting frail' the bus station is filled, have. chance of getting a place on &lona. This plan, we are sure, would be appreciated by the public.