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CONTINUATION OF 1911 REVIEW.

28th December 1911
Page 4
Page 4, 28th December 1911 — CONTINUATION OF 1911 REVIEW.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Motorbuses.

The year 1911 will be remembered in motorbus circles as the year in which London's premier omnibus company reestablished its fortunes by abandoning the horse and concentrating upon the mechanical side of the undertaking. The ordinary stock of the London General Omnibus Co., which stood below £20 two years ago, had gone up before the close of the year, to above £190, and the company had re-entered the list of dividend-paying undertakings. The whole of the recovery is due to motor vehicles, and we do not hesitate to say that the company would be in liquidation now, had it stuck to horses, or reverted to them.

The whole motorbus situation, both in London and the Provinces, is remarkably inspiring, and there is little doubt that. the results now achieved will be fruitful in regard to new concerns, The total of London vehicles its commission has mounted during the year from 1,149 to 1,634, which figures disclose the greatest advance that has occurred in any year except 1906. In the last-mentioned year, the growth was from 229 to 793, but. that was a premature increase, and one which quickly led to disaster during 1907 and 1908, The year will also be remembered as having witnessed the disclosure of a state of consternation in the camp of the tramcar enthusiast, and the display of signals of distress by the London County Council and other municipal traders. London competition between motorbuses and tramcars, where monopolies are not fostered by the withholding of licences for the former, is an object lesson to the world, and the fact that the latest models of moterimees can he run at below 8d. per mile, inclusive of administration, maintenance and depreciation, is a factor in the situation which is not at all realized by those who had based their calculations on behalf of tramcars upon fictitious 14d. or 15d costs for the motorbus. Public confidence in motorbuses has been the great asset in the change, and increases of motorbus revenue have been maintained on that score. New companies are reported to be ready for launching, particularly those which are to be fathered by the Daimler-B.S.A. group and by the British Electric Traction Co., and there is undoubted scope for them to exist side by side with the L.G.O.C. A projected big notation in May last came to nothing, after depressing L.G.O.C. stock to 79.

Steam vehicles are more numerous in London, in the aggregate, than ever before : they add up to 103. They are popular with the public, but not so easy to drive as the modern petrol bus. They are light upon tires, and appear to receive every encouragement at the hands of the authorities. In the Provinces, considerable success has been achieved at Aldershot, Bath, Eastbourne, Keighley, and Tunbridge Wells. Other important services, which we may mention, are in force at Hull and Widnes. Services in connection with railways have been augmented, and there have been considerable additions to the owners of chars-a-banes. A proposal for the establishment of services of motor coaches at Weymouth unfortunately appears to have fallen through. Trolleyblis enterprise has received an impetus from the exteneions in conjunction with the main rail services at Bradford and Leeds, but it is only when supply from a central generating station is available that such an undertaking can be of any advantage compared with the independent motorbus. Independent electro-mechanical systems have been improved, and the systems for which W. A. Stevens, Ltd., and the Thomas Transmission, Ltd., are responsible have been brought to high degrees of efficiency and commercial success. The decision of the L.G.O.C. to supersede some 900 of its early-type chassis by the new 3-ton-type chassis from its own factories is to be noted ; the bearing of this decision upon the view of the London police aud their advisers that the lighter model is in every sense practicable for Metropolitan use is interesting. The Traffic Branch of the Board of Trade has, twice during the year, in February and December, passed high encomiums upon London motorbuses, and has very properly directed attention to the serious obstruction and other traffic hindrances which are imposed by the use of tramcars in crowded streets.

Amongst others of the many incidental features which cannot be crowded out of this review, we find the following : the more-general adoption of halfpenny fares upon many London routes ; the issue by the L.G.O.C. of route-maps each month ; the non-approval by the London police of any type of splashguard that has yet been submitted the evident intention of the L.G.O.C. directors to enter into some arrangement with the tube interests; the proved safety of the motorbus as a passenger-carrying agency ; the fact that the very fine weather during the past summer has greatly contributed to the prosperity of the L.G.O.C. and other moterbus companies.

It is in strict, conformity with the evident tendency at the close of the year, that we put on record examples of distances for which halfpenny and penny fares are in force in London, and a few of the through routes for which a 6d. fare is charged.

Halfpenny fares.—Canning Town Station and Green Street, 2,202 yds.; Boleyn Tavern and Duke's Head, East Ham, 2,041 yds. ; Bedford Street and Stepney Station, 1,431 yds. ; Bow Bridge and Stratford Broadway, 1,871 yds. ; Hackney Station and Dalston, 1,493 yds.; Elephant and Castle and Camberwell Green, 1,4,35 yds.

Penny fares.—Birch Grove and Uxbridge Road Station, 5,204 yds. ; Ealing Broadway and Victoria Tavern, 5,072 yds. ; Wood Green and Finsbury Park, 4,884 yds.; Richmond Road and Shepherd's Bush, 4,775 yds. ; London Bridge Apprttach and Vauxhall Station, 4,367 yds.; Boleyn Tavern and Westbury Hotel, 4,175 yds. ; Camberwell Green and Ludgate Circus, 5,195 yds.

Longest routes (week days).—Service 8, Willesden and Seven Kings, 17.55 miles ; Service23, Acton Vale and Barking, 15.9 miles; Service 15, Putney Cummon and East Ham, 15.15 miles ; Service 27, Richmond and Stoke Newington, 15.05 miles. Through fares, 6d. each.

These instances of motorbus achievement go far to explain the consternation which now exists in the electric-tramcar world. And motorbuses pay : they do net "make good" from the rates.

Motorcabs.

The past 12 months have undoubtedly been most-critical in the history of the development of the motorcab. Li London, unrest which had been brewing for a long while came to a head, and the result was a 3trike in October, which, however, was of ehort duration. Primarily, the whole trouble was centred upon the question of " extras," and this was a subject which was the matter of much discussion during the preceding 12 months. At first the representatives of the drivers denied in tote the fact that the drivers appropriated this portion of the receipts. Subsequently, however, during the course of negotiations between owners and drivers, it was admitted by the latter that the " extras " were not paid in with the other receipts. A temporary adjustment, was effected hy means of an offer from the masters to take 5d. per day per driver in lieu of the "extras." This was regarded as a temporary expedient only, and was intended only to maintain continuity of service while this and other subjects in dispute were discussed more minutely by a joint conference of the two parties. In December, after a series of more or less abortive meetings, it was mutually agreed to submit the disputed points to the arbitrament of the Board of Trade, and, in January, a commission of arbitration is finally to make definite recommendations, Involved, of course, with this allocation of receipts are the relative questions of the advisability of statutory alterations in the tariff, and of some alternative re-arrangement of the manner in which drivers are remunerated. We have from the first advised resistance of any alteration to the existing schedule of fares, unless it be proved absolutely that no other remedy for the had relations between masters and men can be discovered, As en alternative, we have throughoet backed the suggestion that the initial fare in London, where admittedly the traffic conditions are without parallel, should be 10e1., whilst the increments of 2d. should be preserved. The driver's share will require some adjustment.

Competition has not slackened in the Metropolis, and at the present time there are 7,300 motorcabs duly licensed to ply for hire there. The owner-driver is. at the Moment of writing, beginning to be recognized as the most-satisfactory unit in the organization of the mutoreab trade in the Metropolis. Co-operative schemes are growing apace, and there is already something in the nature of a small boom in this collective method of acquiring the vehicles. An ugly feature of the existing unrest has been the large number of prosecutions which have been made of drivers who have been charged with tampering with taximeters. (1r with misappropriating receipts to which the owners claim they have a legal right.

The Departmental Committee of the Home Office on London Taxicabs presented its Reportafter taking exhaustive evidence in August, and the principal recommendations which were then made were : that there should he no alteration of tariff ; that the "extras" should belong to the drivers ; that the driver's proportion of takings should be varied ; that owners should supply drivers with petrol at a fixed price subject to market


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