BLACKPOOL'S ANXIOUS YEAR OF BUS OPERATION
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Details of the Past Year's • Working Reveal that the Municipal Authorities are Looking Ahead of the Times THE bus undertaking of Blackpool Corporation has passed through several vicissitudes since the time of its inception in July, 1921. For certain years of operation the services by buses yielded useful gross profits, the largest being in the year ended March 31st, 1928, when a gross profit of £11,761 was recorded, whilst two years earlier a gross loss of £2,282 was returned.
After meeting loan charges, the largest net profit so far recorded on the bus services was in the year ended March 31st, 1928, when £1,012 was transferred to the tramways account, and the largest net loss on the undertaking was recorded in the year ended March 31st last, the actual figure being £16,883.
The revenue account for the past annual period shows that income from the operation of buses was £67,037, whilst expenditure totalled .L68,237, the amount carried to the net revenue account thus being £1,200. Loan charges totalled £15,683, thus giving the net loss already referred to.
At the end of March last Blackpool Corporation was operating a fleet of 62 buses, its composition being as follows : 26 Leylands, 22 Tilling-Stevens (14 petrol-electric), 8 Guys (6 runabouts), 4 S.D. Freighter runabouts and 2 Kartiers. In the past year the fleet carried a total of 9,059,616 passengers and ran an aggregate mileage of 1,641,288, the highest number of passengers carried in any one day being 57,004 and the highest number of bus miles run in any one day being 6M58. The report of the general manager makes it clear that the past year has been an anxious one in connection with the operation' of motorbuses, inasmuch as many of the routes which have been inaugurated have not earned sufficient revenue to meet working expenses. This fact, togethe'r with the increased cost of petrol and taxation, has placed a burden upon the tramways revenue, and the transport committee has been obliged to revise a number of the services and entirely to withdraw two of them. It is hoped, however, that during the ensuing financial year a substantial saving in bus mileage and in operating costs will be effected with an appreciable increase ihi revenue per bus-mile.
It is made clear that the policy of the transport committee in providing, in . advance, bus-travel facilities in those areas remote from the tramways will eventually prove invaluable to the municipality, as well as to the ratepayers, especially when the time comes for the traffic commissioners to ,consider the granting or withholding or road-service licences.