.S a result of . a comprehensive survey recently
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:completed by Coras lompair EireannEire' mitionalifed tranSport system-Dubliners may soon 1 their buses acting strangely, particularly during peak irs.Depending on the eventual findings of an originI-destination. survey which • has been going on for the t part of a year, certain of the city's buses may soon y be 'carrying passengers in one direction during rush irs. They may be turned round to run non-stop and pty back to points where they can be More 'effectively d for clearing queues. again travelling in the direction the peak traffic flow.
'ertain of the longer stage carriage routes operating, for iance (and this is only an example of what may happen} m the city southwards to the busy dormitory towns of n Laoghaire and Bray where loadings at each end are ivy hut traffic is relatively light in between-. may not. in irre, be operated as such by one vehicle making the Ind trip. At the point where the Dublin end becomes :conomical, certain services may be severely curtailed primed, and likewise at the Bray end of the route.
it common with passenger services in most conurba tions. the major problems of CIE's Dublin City Services, which serve, in the main, an area within a I5-mile radius 61' the city Centre. are twofold • traffic 'congestion and peak-hour demand. True, a larger proportion of Dubliners use :the •buses than is the case in many towns and cities in other parts of the British Isles. Indeed, figures of passenger carryings have shown that the services have managed to hold their own and that the increase in the number of cars and television sets in Dublin has been counterbalanced by the many new housing csjates which have been, and are still being. built in the suburbs. But car ownership in Dublin has doubled and congestion in the city has already caused a 50 per cent reduction in the speed of the buses during peak hours.
While one-way systems have ben introduced on both sides of the River Liffey. the traffic congestion is still building up, causing the old and familiar problem of grouping or convoying of vehicles because of time lost on route causing excessive gaps to build up between buses. This, as busmen are well aware, leads to lack of capacity at various points and the end result is excessive queuing time for passengers. CIE has made tremendous efforts to improve this situation and many innovations have been introduced in the past year or so. A control room for example, has been established in the City Services' headquarters in Upper O'Connell Street— Dublin's main thoroughfare. Stance telephones, for the use of inspectors, have been installed at strategic points along the heavily-trafficked routes. Cars, linked by radio telephone to the control room, are on constant patrol in the city streets reporting hold-ups, temporary diversions and emergencies such as fires or accidents which cause traffic to build up with consequent delays to schedules.
Mechanized cash accounting To save costs and increase conductor efficiency, cash counting and accounting equipment has been installed. Last September a pilot scheme was put into operation in connection with the Summerhill depot whereby waybills and cash are placed in bags and deposited by the conductors into a drop safe installed at the depot. These are opened every morning, placed into containers and brought to the central cash office in Upper O'Connell Street by an armoured-car security organization.
Cash sorting (they use both Irish and English coins and notes in the Republic) and counting machines swiftly count and sort the money for deposit at the bank. This scheme has proved to be a success and, subject to the completion of building operations, a mechanized cash accounting centre will be established at the Donnybrook depot which will deal with cash and waybills from all five garages in the city.
Waybill analysis Carrying mechanization a stage further, a Logabax analysis machine has been installed at head office on which almost 9,000 waybills can be analyzed by one operator during a five-day week. This machine analyzes cash receipts for costing purposes and enumerates in statistical format the number of passengers carried on particular routes. The information is then passed to the traffic manager arid the traffic engineer for further analysis. Information can be stored within the Logabax machine for statistical purposes—work that 198 small adding machines would normally be required to do.
Losing the battle These innovations at the depots, in the city streets and in the accounting offices, together with 14 manuallyoperated clocks situated in the main at short distances from terminal points, are all contributing to the smooth, efficient and economical running of the company's fleet. However, principally because of the terrific build-up of congestion, these are not enough. As manager Mr. J. F. Higgins reported towards the end of last year: "We are slowly losing the battle. These problems will have to be tackled more vigorously if public transport is to continue to give the service that the Dublin public expects".
It is into this battle that CIE has pitched its largest and most complex piece of equipment—its two ICT computers
(Lift) The next stage in the sequel of events is the sorting of the cards into order. This 1CT 313 sorter deals with 45,000 cards an hour 750 a minute.
ancillary equipment. Working as an entirely separate y at James Street Harbour under Mr. E. McKay. ianization officer, the punch-card unit (which is on from International Computers and Tabulators Ltd. at innual rental of f30.000) undertakes work for all ches of CIE-the railways, provincial and city bus .ms, not forgetting the goods-vehicle freight section. fording a saving in man-hours amounting to £46,000 innum, the unit works out all CIE employees' wages, her with associated costings and management accountreturns. As well as this, it undertakes the billing of .! than 3.000 customers and does expenditure reporting lehalf of all area accountants.
nprehensive survey
) further increase operating efficiency and Combat -hour congestion it was decided that a comprehensive ey of the travelling habits of the Dublin public was ed. involving 70 routes and more than 700 vehicles. -nally, in a situation such as this, two principal sources lformation are available—route-costing statistics and rvation surveys.
irveys involve checking the number of passengers on vehicles at selected pick-up points during the rush 1; to ascertain how many people are left behind after aassing of the first bus for which they are waiting; how a passenger has to wait; the number of occupied on each bus passing the selected check point. Three armed inspectors are engaged continuously on this with a team leader at head office.
le most recently completed survey was designed to r a wider field than that mentioned above. Described pick-up. and set-down survey, he traffic engineer, Mr.
issuing machines. 34 of which conductors on certain specified Almex machines issued 0. Gaman, required information about the boarding points of pas sengers. He wanted the various journeys identified to establish loadings at specific periods of the day. and so on.
Computers, of course, can supply such information only if they are fed with the correct data, and considerable thought was given as to the best method of supplying this, utilizing the minimum of extra staff.
It was decided to use Swedish Almex ticket were obtained for use by routes. Information stored