'Guerrilla' roadworks hit bus operation
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• A voluntary control panel 'should be instituted to co-ordinate the numerous roadworks which were making a complete nonsense of bus timetables, said Mr. D. R. Vernon, general manager of the Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Co. Ltd., and Hebble Motor Services Ltd., this week.
During 1969 some 70 per cent of the Yorkshire Woollen District stage carriage mileage had been directly affected by roadworks and nearly all operations had suffered indirectly. As a result the company had been the unfortunate recipient of many complaints. No transport organization could provide reliable road services if the routes over which it operated were the subject of what seemed to be guerrilla tactics employed by statutory bodies with the right to excavate, align, paint and institute single-line working.
His company's experience suggested that there was a massive unco-ordinated effort by the various bodies to effect alterations and repairs to service systems lying below A and B class inter-urban roads, and other roads in the towns and cities of the West Riding. Although admittedly for the sake of future improvements and reasonable day-to-day maintenance, these activities were embarked upon without regard to the ill-effect on traffic—and on bus schedules in particular —created by the various obstructions. It was difficult enough to contend with necessary major work in the urban areas but there were more serious difficulties when three or four single-line traffic sections were instituted on a busy trunk route.
By limiting the work in progress on any one route at any particular time, the frustrating delays could be reduced. Mr. Vernon suggested that statutory authorities should provide details to 'a voluntary central control which would be in possession of the overall picture. They would thus be able to co-ordinate the greater number of roadworks and repairs so as to reduce the frustrating delays and the congestion so often experienced.