LETTERS TO OVERSEAS READERS.
Page 14
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No. 5. —Aeroplane or Motor Vehicle ?
SO MUCH public attention has recently been devoted to commercial aeronautics that many people may have grown prone to believe that in a few years' time the aeroplane will seriously limit the utility, of the road motor vehicle. It is a curious thing that, while such consequences have been anticipated whenever any new means of locomotion has been devised, they have never mate,. rialized. The new has not rendered the old obsolete, but has created for itself a new sphere of usefulness, with the general result that the established methods have found increased rather than decreased
employment. . .
From the point of view of overland commercial services in the Empir,e overseas and in many other countries, the aeroplane has two marked advantages over the motor vehicle. Its speed is superior and it is not dependent upon the existence of a prepared route stretching continuously from the one terminus to the other. The latter is, on the whole, the greater of the two merits, because, in many instances, speed has no intrinsic merit of its own., or, at least, has no value comparable with that of superior economy in transport. Even nowadays, large quantities of goods are quite properly convoyed by barge on rivers and canals even though railway connections are available. Similarly, there are classes of service in which, as yet, the motor cannot supersede the horse with economic advantage. In passenger services, Speed is generally a valuable quality, but even here it is frequently only a matter of comparative rather than positive merit. Given alternative methods of transport, patronage will not inevitably go to the fastest if, as well as being the fastest, it is also the niost expensive. It does not pay everyone to take a motorcab or car for a short journey which can easily be done by bus or walking. It will riot pay everyone to travel by aeroplane when the same journey can be completed in a somewhat longer time by train or by motor vehicle.
The Aeroplane and Speedy Overseas Communications.
The aeroplane will come in mainly for long distance mail services and urgent paslienger work between countries separated by water. At the moment, however, we are considering its more local uses, in which it could conceivably compete directly with the motor vehicle. Here, its main sphere of utility will lie in its ability to connect up points between which there is no other communication either by rail or by road. In such an instance, what is wanted is not so much superlative speed as some form of direct communication. Other things being equal, speed would be an advantage, but far more important are reliability and punctuality of service. In neither of these respects is the aeroplane ideal, and in neither is it ever likely to competre on equal terms with the road vehicle, running where decent roads exist. Furthermore, the cost of operation of the aerial service per passenger or per ton of goods will be far greater than the equivalent cost of a motor ser vice betWeen' the same points. A heavy motor
vehicle under advantageous conditions may carry a. ton of goods for a mile for not more than 2d. One cannot conceive an aeroplane carrying, say, three tons at a total cost of 6d. or 8d. a mile inclusive of fuel, wages, depreciation, insurance and other items.
Thus, the aerial service will come in as a pioneer method before a district is ready for a motor service. The aerial route only needs a ground organization at a string of intermediate points. The motor service needs a, road the whole way. Once we have learned how to do it, the preparation for an aerial service will take a shorter time and cost less money. Thus, we may save in capital outlay a 5um of money, the interest on which would suffice to pay the additional operating costs of aerial traffic. This can, however, only remain true so long as the bulk of traffic to be dealt with is small. Directly it reaches considerable proportions it justifies the creation of a road or railway. The aerial service would be discontinued when the rail or motor service started, unless au appreciable demand for excessively rapid communication existed, which would not generally be the case.
Here we have a potential example of the more speedy method being superseded by the slower one, which serves to show that speed is not 'always the ruling factor. In the same way, the construction of a canal may draw traffic to the comparatively slow barge from the comparatively fast motor vehicle, simply on the ground of economy of transport.
The Aeroplane Not a Competitor with the Motor Vehicle.
Thus, it will be seen that aerial services are less likely to compete with motor services than to assist them. They will develop traffic up to the point when the capital cost of a road is justified.
Only a very small proportion of commercial motor vehicles is used for eravelling more than 80 or 100 miles from heme. This, for an aeroplane, is a very short distance. Over shorter distances its competition could, in no case, be seriously felt by business motor services working on a decent road system. The aeroplane cannot pick up goods from a loading stage at a warehouse and deliver them at a customer's door. • Its use would introduce serious terminal delays and complications, and the saving of time on the journey must more than balance these delays before the aerial method is justified, even upon the grounds of speed irrespective of economy or safety. Moreover, until aeroplanes are able to travel with certainty to time-table, regardless of weather, they are an inferior business proposition in any fully developed country in which distances are note excessively great.
On the whole, then, the inevitable commercial development of aeronautics need not for an instant give pause to those who are contemplating the establishment of motor services or the purchase of motor vehicles, to be employed under any reasonable conditions either for the transport of goods or the' carriage of passengers. WANDERER.