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Making Services Fit the Traffic

21st May 1948, Page 31
21st May 1948
Page 31
Page 32
Page 31, 21st May 1948 — Making Services Fit the Traffic
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

By J. C. Gillham ONE of the biggest problems encountered in bus operation to-day is that of the peak period, when perhaps 50 per cent. of the day's traffic has to be carried in 20 per cent, of the traffic day. With municipal operators, the problem is more serious than with the majority of companies, as it is encountered on practically every route. Most company operators, on the other hand, work rural Services as Well as town routes, and the problem, although present, is not so acute on country routes. Hence the small family" bus buSiness, which usually operates in a rural area, is less directly affected by the rush hour than is the larger operator_

This is fortunate; because the small operator is less able to afford the cost of additional vehicles, which are used in only 20 per cent; of the traffic day, than is the larger one Those operators, Whether they be municipal, federated company Or independent, whose' routes are entirely in or near one or more towns, will almost certainly be faced with heavy additional expenditure upon purchasing buses that are ,Used for only 'a few, hours per day. In general, the only towns where this state of affairs will not apply are sea§ide holiday resorts. , .

'Consider the caSeof a town having a fleet of 100 vehicles, about 97 of them Will probably be in service between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., and again between 4.10 p.m. aridr6.30 p.m. Between about 10 a,m. 'and noon, and again between 2 p.m. and 4 -Nil., 'probably 60 buses will be sufficient to carry the traffic. .that, presents itself, and in an industrial district the figure may be lower.

Mid-day Traffic in Small Towns .

The evening =schedule will probably call for about 50 buses, whilst 'mid-day requirements tend to vary according to the size Of the town. Inea small town, people live only one pr two, miles from their places of employment, and are thus able to go home to dinner, whilst in a larger town the distance is usually greater, so that few people can get home, have their meal and return to work, all within the hour.

It follows, therefore, that in a small town the mid-day .peak presents a much greater problem than in the mediumsized town. In all towns, however, the mid-day peak is less noticeable now than it was before the war; because of 'food rationing, many people who would otherwise go home for their mid-day meal prefer to take their meal in the factory Canteen or at a public café. When food rationing ceases, operators may be called upon to run many more buses; and certainly to carry more passengers donne the Mid-day period, than they do at present.

With a fleet of 100 buses it will not usually be possible to reduce below three the number unavailable for service, even during the rush hour. There will always be a few vehicles undergoing major or minor overhaul, or suffering from sonic small defect. Of the 97, anything up to 25 vehicles will probably make only three or four journeys per day, and thus spend three-quarters of their time in the garage. It is a mistake to assume that, were it not for peak periods, these 25 buses could be sold, hut it is true of, say, 20 of them. • The other five vehicles can have their three-weekly dock in.spection. Mill greasing, brake adjustments and other attention, during the slack period between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.. although this will sometimes cause older buses to be on the road while newer ones are in the garage. Many operators prefer to carry out a dock inspection at night, even though this may involve paying the titters a higher rate. This means that all the newest vehicles in he fleet are on the road all day, and the older ones, which are probably rather shabby, will then always do the smallest mileage per day.

Passengers with Dirty Clothes

The latter method greatly simplifies timetable compilation, so far as concerns allocation of individual vehicles to individual timings, especially in an industrial area. Although the principal aspect of catering for factory traffic is undoubtedly that of the rush-hour itself, an important secondary consideration is that, through no fault of their own, factory workers often have to travel in dirty overalls, thus contaminating seat upholstery.

For this reason, many bus operators keep a portion of their fleet solely for use on rush-hour factory traffic, as distinct from letting every bus in the fleet take one day on rush-hour-only work, and the next day on ordinary full-time seryce. It would be wrong to provide factory workers with a bus less comfortable than a new one, but there is less objection to its being dull.

This, then, persuades most operators to retain their old vehicles, or those that will soon be due for a major overhaul, for rush-hour work. and to have the cleanest and newest ones on the road all day. Their smart appearance will be more likely to encourage additional non-essential travel, or casual passengers during the period of the day when the operator call best cater for them, and when he most needs additional traffic.

Now let us consider the effect of the rush hour upon the timetable. The additional vehicles required will fall into two categories: (a) those which are placed on a service which runs all day, hut needs a greater frequency during the rush hour, and (hl those which are placed on a route which does not operate at all during the slack periods. The second category is much easier for the schedule compiler, who can make a clean start, using buses which are available in the garage, at whatever time he needs them. But it is more difficult to build up, for example, a 10-minute service in the slack hours, to a 74-minute rush-hour service, because the former has first to be broken down before the latter can be effected, and except for the additional vehicles brought out of the garage. any bus is available only at a given point at one particular moment, The frequency of the service can usually. be varied only at one or both termini, irrespective of where the garage be situated in relation to those termini. If the extra bus be placed in service at an intermediate point, then (a) either it will have to run soon after the previous full-journey bus. or immediately in front of the next following one, or (b) two or three slack-hour buses will have to wait a few minutes at some intermediate point in order to even out the service frequency.

Increasing Frequency by 21 Minutes Dealing with the first solution, let us suppose that slackhour buses will pass the nearest intermediate point to the garage at the rate of one every 10 minutes in each direction. If the required rush-hour frequency be five minutes, an extra bus can be brought out of the garage five minutes after each existing one has passed, and the new required frequency will have immediately .been attained. But if rush-hour frequency is to be 74 minutes, the matter is not so simple. and it will be necessary for the buses from the garage to join the route five minutes after every third allday bus has passed.

From this intermediate point, until the terminus is reached, the service will then run at these minute intervals:-10, 10, 5x, 5, 10, 10, 5x, 5, 10, 10, 5x, 5, etc. Buses marked x are the extra ones that come out for the rush hour, and they will continue to be introduced at the stated intervals until the first one has made one complete round trip (if the garage be feeding the route in only one direction), or until the first one returns to the point on the route nearest the garage (if the garage be feeding the route in both directions).

The irregular frequency quoted can be converted into a regular one of 74 minutes so soon as each bus reaches the first terminus after the feeding point, by increasing the layover time of some buses by five minutes. others by 21, and a number not at all, If, therefore, six all-day buses would, at 10-minute frequency, be scheduled to depart from the terminus at 0,10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 minutes past each hour, then in order to introduce the new frequency the second, third, fifth and sixth buses would have to delay their departure so that the six started on the return journey at 0, 15, 221, 30, 45 and 52/ minutes past the hour. The rush-hour extras that came out after each third all-day bus would then provide departures at 71 and 371 minutes past the hour.

If the garage be situated at or near the terminus, instead of at or near an intermediate point, the delayed departures can be introduced simultaneously with the arrival of the extra buses from the garage.

Cross-town Services

In the case of the second solution, it will be practicable to delay all-day buses at an intermediate point only if this point be one at which most passengers board or alight. Such a case exists in the majority of the smaller and mediumsized towns, where through buses run from the suburbs on one side to those on the other. side, via the town centre, and most passengers board or alight at the town centre.

Suppose the route runs from the northern suburb to the southern suburb, and the garage is in the eastern or western suburbs, or near the centre of the town. Then, if every second, third, fifth and sixth bus be delayed for 5, 21. 5 and 21 minutes respectively, in the klarket Place or outside the Town Hall (according to where least traffic congestion will be caused), the number of through passengers which will be inconvenienced will be small in relation to those who will benefit from the elimination of the period of irregular headway on outward journeys from the Market Place to the suburb.

The period of increased frequency will thus be introduced on outward journeys from the town centre about half an hour or more before its effect is felt on outward journeys from the suburbs. This will be of maximum benefit in taking workers home from the town centre to the suburbs at the start of the evening rush hour.

If the garage were at one end of the route—say, in the northern suburbs—the extra buses would have to make three-quarters of a round trip before they provided increased frequency to bring people home from the town.

When the evening rush-hour has finished, and the 10-minute frequency is again to be resumed, the reverse of the foregoing procedure is applied. If there be departures from the terminus at 0, 71, 15, 221, 30, 37/, 45 and 52/ minutes past the hour, every fourth bus will be withdrawn and taken back to the garage. Those that are withdrawn can either be the two that were put on specially for the rush hour, or they can be any two others that have been running all day, provided that On this example) the two chosen are running 30 minutes apart..

If we suppose that those at 221 and 521 minutes past the hour are withdrawn, the departure from the point of withdrawal of the 71-minute and 371-minute buses will have to be delayed until 10 and 40 minutes past the hour, respectively, and the buses at 15 and 45 minutes will each have to be held back for five minutes.

Sending Buses Off Early Each timetable has to be considered on its merits, and if the terminal layover time be sufficient, it may sometimes be more convenient, in either starting or finishing the rushhour service, to send a bus from the terminus a few minutes earlier than it would otherwise have gone on the previous frequency, instead of a few minutes later. In this case the extra buses will be inserted at, or withdrawn from, a different position in the sequence of vehicles, but it is important that the waiting time at the terminus should not be reduced to. less than about 5 per cent. of the journey time.

. Any irregular terminal layover time will probably be needed while the frequency is being changed, and not while it is actually at its maximum. If a bus has to wait 10 minutes at the terminus, instead of the usual five, or five at the Market Place on a cross-town run instead of going straight through, it should not prove detrimental.

A major anomaly, under present conditions, is that of workmen's fares, the provision of which is a statutory duty of practically all municipalities and many companies. At a time when every bus is fully loaded, the operator is compelled to charge cheap fares, which tend to attract even more traffic, whereas it would be more logical to charge higher fares at that period so as to persuade non-essential traffic to travel in the stack period.

Workmen's fares were introduced many years ago, at a time when "artisans, mechanics and daily. labourers" were extremely poorly paid, and could not afford the full fare. Gradually their conditions have improved to such an extent that many of them now earn more than the average office worker. Yet, because the factory opens an hour or two earlier than the office, the craftsmen travel for half the fare of the clerk. This anomaly causer, many office workers to save money by travelling an hour or so earlier than they otherwise would do, at the peak of the morning, instead of when traffic is thinning out. The only factor that makes the provision of workmen's fares economically possible is the guarantee of a full load.

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