Economics of Large Buses
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I NCREASING the capacity of public service vehicles on urban routes, notably by using the articulated type, reduced operating costs and traffic congestion, according to the conclusions of Mr. A. Fogliano, a director of Turin Municipal Transport, and Mr. A. Faschetto, the chief service officer of the undertaking, who dealt with savings in running cost that could be derived from modernization of urban public service vehicles.
Motorbuses operated by one man represented the most economical of all vehicles on routes with limited traffic, the authors claimed, whilst double-deck vehicles and buses with half a top deck could be advantageously employed if the other types were not permitted by the regulations.
Based on forrnube covering all the variables and the use of monograms, it could be shown that a service at 4to 5-min. intervals could best be provided by (a) 47-passenger single-deckers if the number of passengers varied between 550 and 950 an hour; (b) two-axIed singledeckers with a capacity of 82 passengers for a rate of 950 to 1,400 passengerS an hour; (c) four-axled tramcars carrying 108 passengers -for a density of 1,400 to 2200, passengers an hour, or by large
articulated motorbuses with a length of 18 m. (59 ft.) for 1,650 to 2,500 passengers an hour;. (d) articulated tramcars for more than 2,200 passengers an hour. If fewer than 550 passengers hourly were carried it would be necessary to run the 47-passenger bus at intervals of more than 5 min.
In Duisburg, the introduction of 12-m. (391t.) motorbuses with a short upper deck had increased carrying capacity by 7.1 per cent. and had reduced vehiclekm. by 10.4 per cent. The use of 18-m. trolleybuses on one route in Turin would enable vehicle-km. to be reduced by 30 per cent. without reducing the seat-km., whilst articulated motorbuses on another route would provide a 14 per cent. increase in passenger capacity, together with a reduction of vehicle-km. per week from 7,000 to 5,200 and a corresponding saving of 20 per cent. in the number of vehicle staff employed. The Turin undertaking operated 350 articulated motorbuses and trolleyb uses.
Of eight undertakings in England and Ireland questioned regarding capacity, three, had stated that they favoured larger vehicles and the ratio in the case of. French operators was six out of 20. Replies from Italy showed a ratio of two out of four.