DATA PROCESSING FOR RIBBLE
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ADATA processing installation has recently been installed by Ribble Motor Services Ltd. At the moment only used for the audit of waybills and compilation by routes of revenue and passengers carried, and of route and vehicle mileage and fuel consumptions, it will soon take over engineering stores records. Eventually the equipment will also deal with the payroll and company's accounts.
The International Computers and Tabulators Ltd. installation comprises a 1004 processor with summary punch, a high-speed sorter, five automatic card punches, four verifiers, a collator, reproducer and an interpreter. The processor consolidates three basic functions: card reading, electronic calculations and highspeed printing. Punched cards with 80 columns are read at speeds up to 400 a minute and complete lines of output printed at the same speed. A maximum of 7,500 calculations a second can be achieved.
Two types of cards are punched from waybills; one records the cash paid in and the value of tokens and shorts. The other details the number of passengers and the receipts for each route. Shorts cards and those for route analysis are separated by the sorter, and the shorts are tabulated by conductors' numbers within depots. From the route analysis cards, totalling 6,000 per day, an average of 500 summary cards are produced giving the totals of passengers and receipts for each route for the day. In turn, the daily summary cards are processed to a weekly tabulation, with further summary cards produced to give monthly and, finally, annual figures.