THE EXPRESS BUS.
Page 15
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The Possibilities of Running Express Motorbuses Parallel with Trams, but without Their Stopping-place Limits, are Discussed by "The Inspector."
FROM TIME to time, since London—a good many years ago now—began to motorize its omnibus equipment, suggestions hase cropped iip to the effect that one development that was certain to prove a. promising one would he the organization of express services as auxiliary to the main stopping schedules on the principal routes. This suggestion has got past the paper stage on one or two occasions. One of the .easliest attempts to give effect to the idea may be remembered by those who have been associated in one way or another with the industry since its earliest days. This was an attempt to organize an express bus service in the south of London.
„It may be recalled that Mr. Davison Dalziel, who was at that time associated with the remarkable General Motor-Cab organization using Renaults, Charrons, and other similar small machines, started a service on Charron single-deckers. They were hardly comparable with the modern type of machine going under this name, but they had pneumatic tyres, and were in a sense saloon buses, and, if my memory recalls aright, they ran from Kennington up to Brompton Road, making a special feature of stopping at Harrods, with which huge store those who promoted the service were closely identified. The writer took several journeys in these machines, and they were comfortable and quick, but there was not sufficient of them to maintain a service which could be of use without reference to a time-table—an allimportant point in the matter of a passenger who is prepared to pay more for his seat than, the ordinary rider. It is believed that that early attempt to use pneumatics also caused a lot of trouble, although the machines were quite light and were more or less 2&-cwt. or 30-cwt. _models. They were withdrawn after relatively short service; there were only two or three of them used for the experiment.
This serves to show that there were minds even so long ago as that engaged in considering the possibilities of express. services.
The purpose of the present article is to show that this problem is one to which new and up-to-date circumstances suggest should be given further attention. The idea that appeals to the writer is that express motorbus services should be used in conjunction with existing tramway services. Two of the principal causes for the relative slowness of tramway transport, it is generally admitted, are the necessity for one vehicle to run behind the other and for the speed of the whole fleet to be strictly limited by the slowest member of it. No tram can pass another going in the same direction, at any rate in normal circumstances. Thousands of pounds are lost in tramway undertakings because passengers cannot be botherea to spend so long a while on a through journey as is usually necessitated on a fairly populous route. They will take a lot of trouble and go a long way out of their way to secure an alternative method that will get them to their destination five or six miles away at a quicker rate, and with what is as great in importance—fewer irritating stops to pick up and set down.
The problem is not by any means one for the Metropolis alone, and the new aspect of it should surely and particularly concern provincial organizations. Experience has shown, now that so many single-deck bus services are operating into and out of large industrial centres and covering routes hitherto transportless to outlying villages and settlemmits that traffic can be, and as, invariably created by the provision of a fairly frequent service of vehicles which run through outside districts with few stops into the town, and then with no stops until the oentre is reached. Very often such services are not provided with "plying for hire " licences that are available in the central town, but the through service and the quick service that is provided invariably proves a popular one, and there are a great number of instances up and down the country where this principle is proving to be a great money earner.
Tramway officials particularly are, on the whole, not, shall we say, enthusiastic as to the possibilities of independent motorbus operation in conjunction with their tram services ; indeed, so often will they only consider their use as auxiliary to and outside of their tramway systems. Buses are frequently tried by tramway people to extend the service from the terminals of their existing rails; they are not given the opportunity of carrying passengers in the outside areas right through alongside the trams, but are forced to disgorge and to tranship them into the trains at the terminals. This does not give the bus half a chance, nor does it enable the passenger to get through to his destination in the quickest possible time. The transhipment, to start with, is objectionable to many, and the subsequent journey by tram offers further difficulties. If, in such cases, tramway authorities would consider the possibility of developing new traffic over their areas by running bus services from outside right into the town centre, not picking up in opposition to the tramcars, but carrying express or semi-express traffic only, it appears at least likely that in such direction there is a great scope for increasing revenue and at the same time, for using the bus alongside the tram.
Express passengers will always pay a little more for their accommodation, and, that being so, the development of this new traffic is not likely, in the writer's opinion at any rate' to rob tramway services of any of their current revenue, which is the ever-existent bogey of the tramway traffic manager. The trolley-bus cannot run express," because, owing to overhead connections, they are very largely tied to the track in the same way that the tramcar is, and unable to pass other machines without involving the latter in slight delay. Express trolley-buses would most certainly require their own through wires.
It must not be understood that the suggestion implies great speed and the provision of powerful engines and pneumatic tyres and lightweight machines ; it is merely suggested that the superior point-to-point speed of a machine not hampered by innumerable "take up" and "set down" stops would be so advantageous to a large number of passsngers, who would be prepared to pay for the facility, that additional and remunerative traffic would in that way be created, while, at the same time, areas outside existing tramway systems would he properly catered for. Current experiments during theatre time in Liverpool and elsewhere have, at any rate, served to confirm the money-earning possibilities of the " express " vehicle and its higher fare. earning capacity.