350,000 Bread and Butter Passengers
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Express Services, Excursions and Contract Work Form the Bulk of the Business of Sheffield United Tours
by Andrew Seacombe
DURING 1954, civer 96 per cent: of the passengers carried by Sheffield United Tours, Ltd., travelled on excursions, express services or under private-hire arrangements. Contract work accounted for 144,831 passengers, express services 103,950, and excursions 98,814. These figures are in marked contrast with the 14,100 persons who travelled -on the company's extended tours, the organization and scope of which were described in The Commercial Motor on June 17.
In the nature of things, extendedtour operation is generally romanticized, but it is this other, more down-to-earth, aspect that provides the majority of tour operators with their daily bread, and this is no less true in the ease of S.U.T.
The extended-tour side of the company's activities is almost completely divorced from what might loosely be described as their local operations. This segregation is carried so far as having separate offices in different parts of the city, booking and charting facilities for excursions, express services and private hire being located at premises in Union Street, some distance from the extendedtour office at Pond Hill.
36 Express Services
The scope of the express services is wide, 36 destinations as far apart a. Ilfracombe, Blackpool, Llandudno. Great Yarmouth, Bournemouth and the Isle of Man being served. The ,Isle of Man service is run in conjunction with the Lancashire Aircraft Corporation, who fly the passengers to the island from Blackpool.
With the exception of the one to • the Isle of Man, all the services have hitherto run through from Sheffield, • but for the first time S.U.T. are participating this year in an express ser vice with another operator. This establishes a link by road with Edinburgh and Glasgow. S.U.T. carrying passengers to Preston, where they transfer to Scottish services run by Ribble Motor Services, Ltd.
The transport student's first impression of the company's express ticket and charting system is that it is old-fashioned, but little examination is needed to show that it would be difficult to replace it with anything more effective. To anyone who is personally acquainted with Mr. Ben Goodfellow, S.U.T.'s general manager, this goes without saying.
• When he introduced me to the system, Mr. R. Rodgers, the traffic manager, said that when he joined the company just over a year ago he was given a free hand to overhaul it in the light of his own experience, but so far he had been unable to find a more efficient alternative.
It depends largely on a colour code, each destination or group of destinations having its distinguishing colour. These colours are known to all staff concerned in express-service departures who, at a glance, can direct ticket holders to the appropriate vehicle waiting at a pre, arranged point in, or adjacent to, Union Street or Waingate, where all express services beat
Before the season opens, the traffic department estimates the demand from a combination of past experienceand conjecture. and takes out options on the hiring of other operators' vehicles. The extent to which this is done is, indicated by the fact that there are up to 230 coaches in use by S.U.T. on a peak Saturday.
When bookings open, the Union Street office is supplied with the total number of seats available to a particular destination on a given day. This figure is controlled by the . authorized number and availability of vehicles, and the potential, demand.
' A separate folder is kept for each destination or group of • destinations. and the figures supplied by the traffic department are entered against the appropriate dates. These figures are reduced as bookings are made, giving the availability of seats literally at a glance.
A record of all bookings refused is kept by the traffic department. Full details of each refusal, including the . would-be passenger's -name and address are entered on a post-card which, if seats become available through cancellation, can besent to
• the person concerned.
• Thc cards are alai used tosupport applications to the Licensing Authority' for increases in vehicle allowances, and persons who 'have been refused for lack or 'vehicles are approached and asked if they will support such applicarlons.
A similar, though less elaborate, system is used in•the ease of " new " destinations. A record is loept of the numbers of people who wish to book to destinations to which the company do not run services, and this information is produced when permission is being sought to operate to the places , concerned.
From the bookings, the traffic department completes a loading schedule covering a given service on a particular day. This gives the number of passengers, and the number and seating capacities of the ehicles required, on both the outward and return journeys.
The loading schedules go to the chief engineer, Mr. R. Burgin, who is responsible for the allocation of both vehicles and drivers. Drivers are notified of their duties for the fol. lowing day on a bulletin board posted in the garage at Charlotte Street, on the outskirts of the city, where the head office is situated.
Express services and excursions take third choice in respect of coaches, first choice going to extended tours, private hire taking second place.
Each driver on an express service is provided with a schedule giving picking-up points and times, settingdown points, and the number of passengers for each. Route instructions are also given, together with the telephone numbers of S..U.T. offices and associated concerns. The methorf of charting excursions is patterned on that used for extended tours, the traffic department allocating a predetermined number of vehicles to a given destination for a certain day.
Two charts are issued for each vehicle. One goes to the Union Street office, with half the scats allocated to the agent in Waingate (with whom S.U.T. have a special arrange ment), and the other to the S.U.T. Waingate office, half the seats having been reserved for Union Street. Each chart is given a number, which corresponds with the number pro minently displayed in the appropriate vehicle. This figure is also entered on the passenger's receipt when a booking is made.
The receipt number and the passenger's name are entered against the corresponding seat number on the chart, from which the driver, Who is supplied with a copy of the chart, can check with the original receipt held by the traveller before an excursion begins.
Contract-carriage operation, as the figures I gave earlier indicated, is a highly important aspect of S.U.T.'s activities. Much of this business comes from works and street outings, and trips organized by working men's clubs for the children of members, 45 to 50 coaches often being booked for one party.
Coaches for Footballers
_ Two regular private-hire jobs done by S.U.T. are to carry Sheffield's two professional soccer teams, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, when they are playing away matches.
Special coaches are reserved— though not exclusively—for this purpose. When these vehicles are to be used by either of the teams, the S.U.T. winged motifs on each side of the Windover bodywork are replaced by plates giving the name of the team. The screw fixings for both the motig and the plates are identical, simplifying the task of replacement.
For the Grand National this year, one of the Windover-bodied coaches was converted into a comfortable lounge with bar and buffet facilities for use at Aintree by a party of local businessmen. Mounted on the roof was a specially constructed tubularmetal grandstand with a capacity of 20 persons.
To enable the roof to take the strain, six steel stanchions, three along each side, were bolted to the floor and the roof beneath the superstructure. Access to the enclosure was provided from the interior of the coach by a specially designed ladder which was fixed into the aperture provided when the standard sliding, roof panel was opened.
The party travelled to Aintree in another coach, transferring to the improvised grandstand alongside the racecourse.
Inc identally„this coach was the one which, also equipped with bar and with. the seats arranged in loungestile, carried competitors' luggage on the Monte-Carlo Rally this year.
The provision of coaches in connection with this • famous international car rally has now become an annual event for S.U.T. Although the returns are negligible in _terms of hard cash.; the publicity-conscious Mr. GoOdlellow realizes that the long-term effects are incalculable, not only for his company but for the whole British coaching industry.
S.U.T. also provide transport for the British and Continental side of
• world tours organized-' by Atlas World Tours (Pty.), Ltd., Melbourne, Australia, whose London office is in the Athenaeum Court 'Hotel, Piccadilly. For the more expensive of these tours. Humber Pullman. cars are employed, but in the case of the cheaper tours, run by Atlas in conjunction with Oceanic Tours, coaches are used.