Consult Operators on Roads
Page 48
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GIV1NG an example of the effect on vehicle maintenance of abnormal road .conditions, Mr. Dean said that one company in the north of England lost 210,000 miles because of snow and ice between January 26 and March 18, 1941. In that period, the company, which had 320 licensed vehicles. suffered 297 broken road springs, 17 broken chassis side members, 129 radiators burst or damaged, -326 broken windows, 18 broken axle-shafts, and 52 badly damaged bodies.
He criticized the "far too many' eases .where little thought had been given to planning roads suitable for bus operation on houSing estates built by local authorities.
"In the interest of its ratepayers, a local authority should consult the appropriate bus operator in the early stages of estate planning," he said. Consultation resulted not only in estates being properly served, but avoided subsequent heavy expenditure on strengthening the foundations of roads not originally planned for bus services when these were later desired.
The railways were having to close many branch lines, not because of any anti-railway attitude by consignors of goods, but because road transport had proved cheaper, speedier, more convenient or more efficient One could
not help but wonder whether the proposed expenditure of £1,200m. on modernizing the railways would not be better spent on motor highways, he added.
Referring to the duty of a general manager to improve the operating efficiency of his undertaking's services, Mr. Dean said that a bus saved was roughly £3,000 earned a year. Today, there was little scope for improved efficiency. Delay caused by congestion in towns and cities had largely cancelled out the improvement in vehicle. performance.
One way of reducing the delays would be to remove the 30 m.p.h. speed limit for public service vehicles outside built-up areas.
The removal of level crossings from the centre of towns, and from trunk and Class A roads, should have high priority. If road closures at crossings were frequent, bus time-tables had to he adjusted to allow for the delays.
Level Crossings Raise Costs
On local services with close headways, the resultant additional costs were heavy.. If, because of a level crossing, the return-journey time of a service of 5-min. frequency was increased from 25 min. to 30 min. an additional bus was required to maintain the services at a cost of around £3,000 a year.
if bus operators knew that their traffic would doubte in the next 10 years they would devise a new vehicle programme to keep pace with the development. The position would not be met by increasing the fleet by 10% in four years' time and saying, when the public cried out about inadequacy. that they had increased their fleet by X vehicles when traffic had developed by four times X.
Yet that was broadly the effect of the Government's road programme announced last year, but with the difference that that started from an inadequate position. The £147m. programme covering four years would not solve the problem even if it were fulfilled in the time, which was most