Bus Traffic Down: Mileage Up
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-11-1E number of passengers carried by Birmingham and Midland Motor mnibus Co., Ltd., in 1953 was lower an in the previous year and the reducm was greater than the drop in 51-52. Mr. J. S. Wills, chairman, ve this information at the annual eting on Tuesday.
Staffing problems had become worse, t higher standards of service were sieved last year and the introduction more new vehicles helped to enhance iciency. • Mechanized bus cleaning was being ended to include the cleaning of afs and the underframes of chassis. 're office work had been mechanized. e installation of conductors' night es was almost completed. Improved thods of maintenance had made sible an increase in mileage between • rhauls and these, with other smaller nomies, had resulted in savings tiling £100,000 a year.
Iileage run by 13.M.M.O. vehicles more than 76m. in 1953, an increase over lm. compared with the 1952 re. In the last year of the war the figure was only 43m, yet the increase in mileage contrasted strangely with the drop in passengers. The reduction reflected hardening of prices and the increase in the number of private cars.
Fourteen new services were introduced and the frequency of 157 increased. During last year 124 new vehicles were put into service and 119 obsolete models withdrawn.
Mr. Wills thought that B.M.M.O. had the largest number of underfloorengined single-deckers in Britain. There were, he said, 737 such types, 575 of which were 8 ft. wide. The company were now producing an additional 270 underfloor-engined single-deckers and 373 double-deckers, all of which would be 8 ft. wide and equipped with poweroperated doors.
Plans were in hand, said Mr. Wills, for new garages at Stafford, South Wigston and Leamington Spa, and for extensions to garages at Tamworth, Bromsgrove, Hereford, Shrewsbury and Ludlow. On November 26, the company would celebrate their golden jubilee.