'Buses Driven from Pillar to Post'
Page 43
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
"is becoming fashionable to urge the bus industry to improve its 'image' by providing more comfortable 'more efficient ', and ' more reliable ' services, so as to regain traffic from its main rival, the private car. I confess that all this leaves me cold," said Mr. Raymond W. Birch in his address as chairman of the South Wales Transport Co. Ltd. last week. He went on to say that an increase in reliability could be obtained only by clearing the roads of obstruction by other traffic, and especially by stationary vehicles, and by ceasing to give such tender consideration to those who cause congestion. "At times I feel that the buses are driven from bus-stop pillar to bus-stop post—all supposedly in the interests of other road users, for whom time, space and distance are of lesser public importance."
As to greater efficiency, he said, had it not been for the continuous ingenuity, skill and contrived economies developed by the company's departments, the people in the Swansea area would be paying higher fares and getting less frequent and less convenient services.
The South Wales profit for 1962 was slightly higher than in the previous year, said Mr. Birch; the latest pay award would add 05,000 to the company's costs in the full year and a further application for fares increases would have to be made. He hoped the company would receive from local authorities the same understanding that was accorded last year. In the past 10 years the company had spent 11.4 tit on 274 new vehicles, said Mr. Birch. Last year the additions were 24 high-capacity, forward-entrance double-deckers and 13 single-deckers, seven of them with 36-ft. by 8-ft. 21-in. bodies.
Mr. Birch recorded that the integration of the business of J. James and Sons Ltd. of Ammanford, bought last October, had gone smoothly.