SYSTEMATIC MOTOR-COACH BOOKING.
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A Highly Organized Method of Bookings is Used by the Company Running the Orange Luxury Coaches, which Deal with 8,000 Passengers Per Week.
COT-OF-DATE or slipshod methods ‘.../have no place in the motor-coaching organization of Keith and Boyle (London), Ltd., the operator of the popular fleet of Orange Luxury Coaches. To carry out its contract with every passenger is the aim of the concern, and this ideal has been faithfully adhered to. This note of service to the passenger permeates the whole of the company's operations, as a recent visit to some of the chief departments dearly showed us. During the summer months passenger traffic forms a very important section of the company's business, apart from the all-the-year-round goods-transport undertaking—a notable example of the latter phase of its operations being the running under contract of a large fleet of vans for G. Kemp, Ltd., the well-known biscuit manufacturer.
The fleet of Orange coaches consists of 30 Guys, 22 ECalleys, 10 Minervas, Vnican• and an Associated Daimler. The coaches are all of up-to-date design, many of them being 1928 models, an.] they include types to seat 22, 28, 31 and 32 passengers respectively. All-weather equipment, with adjustable side windows, is favoured for the Majority of the bodies, whilst the others are of the usual open type, care, however, being taken to see that the hoods and side curtains fitted to the latter bodies afford adequate protection for the passengers in wet weather.
Central Booking Control.
All booking is controlled from the head office in Harleyford Road, London, S.E.11, in conjunction with the company's stations at Effra Road, Brixton, and at 45 Parkhurst Road, Holloway, as well as through the medium of appointed agents, these including :the District Messenger Co. and Dean and Dawson, Ltd.
The booking arrangements -are unusual and have been advanced-to a high degree of. efficiency. Owing to an expected—and realized—large increase in the passenger traffic for this year, Mr. F. Boyle Monkman, the managing director of Keith and Boyle (London), Ltd., decided at the beginning of the season to dispense. with the system of seat-booking by numbers, which the con:limns, then employed. In its place, a remarkable organization has been established. A large blackboard is placed in a prominent position in the central booking room. This board is lettered down its left-hand side with the names of the various south-coast towns served by the company's vehicles. Vertical ruling gives fourteen coIurens on the board and two of these are assigned to each day for a week ahead one being used in connection with runs from London and the other for " up " journeys. The numbers of unhooked seats are chalked against the various towns, in the " up " or "down" columns, according, of course, to the category in which they fall, and in the section reserved for the date on which they are available.
When a section is booked o capacity. a cross is placed in the colt it instead of a number, so that when an inquiry for a seat is made over th telephone or the counter, the employed concerned has only to look at the bard to see whether a ticket can iss ad for the date required.
If the booking be made the clerk enters all necessary partie Jars on a special slip provided for t e purpose and alters the chalked number on the board according to requirements. •
The slip is passed on to another clerk who transfers the .particuIars to dated charts, these, when completed, being forwarded to the company's station at Brixton. Waybills are made out from the details on the charts and are then passed. on to the driver, who collects the tickets from the: passengers and places them in an envelope provided for the purpose. The tickets am -stored in this envelope at the lead office until the end of the season, when they are checked against the charts and waybills; a whole room is given over to these packets, so heavy is the traffic
dealt with. Incidentally, the charts show exactly how many seats can be filled for the outward journeys, in order that space may be left for the longdate" travellers, who are returning from the coast. In this way, the company is able to make certain that none of its patrons shall be stranded.
A Time-saving Method; It is, perhaps, a little difficult to show the simplicity of this effective system— especially that of the hooking section— in writing, but it will be better appredated when it is stated that, whereas, when the old method was in use, the time for booking a seat was about 1 min. 40 secs., with the new arrangement, it is approximately 10 secs. As the company deals with an average of 8,000 bookings per week, the time saved amongst all the booking clerks amounts to 200 working hours per week.
The repair works of the company, which are under the charge of Mr. W. S. Stagg, are also well organized, and many up-to-date, labour-aiding machines are employed. These appliances include a Hall cylinder hone, a boring tool for crankcase bearings and a new type of jig—designed in the works—for the remetalling of big-end bearings. It is interesting to 'note that all crankshaft bearings dealt with in the works are ground with a very fine abrasive after scraping. This process secures an nnusually smooth surface—just as though the bearings have been carefully run in —and Mr. Stagg claims that it increases the life of these bearings by 331r per cent.
The service coaches of Keith and Boyle (London), Ltd., run from the company's station mentioned above, namely, that near the Brixton Town Hall. This station accommodates about 25 coaches and, in the winter it is used mainly as a storage depot for the vehicles. It is equipped with a refreshment buffet and other facilities for passengers. On Saturdays and Bank Holidays, the traffic, from the station is naturally very heavy, well over 2,000 passengers being dealt with between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. The passengers, of course, are almost all holiday-makers, the concern not catering . ostensibly for business traffic.
The Departure Arrangements.
The first coaches to leave the station each day after the feeder vehicles have started to arrive are those for Clacton and Southend. These .vehicles leave at 9 a.m., as they have to cross London to call at the Holloway Station for the completion of their complement of passengers. They finally leave London for the coast at about 10.10 a.m. At about 9.30 a.m, the morning rush has reached its zenith, feeder coaches are bringing in hundreds of passengers, whom they have 'picked up at the local agents' premises, and the station is packed with vehicles rapidly loading to capacity. Nothing but a smooth-working organization could possibly cope with such a heavy volume of traffic. Thanks to the clear indicators provided, the passengers soon find their seats, and when the filled coaches leave the station empty ones take their places. By .10 am, almost incredible as it seems, the station is empty and the coaches are all on their journeys to the coastal resorts. So passes the hour of departure.
When the vehicles return to the station at night, coaches are waiting to return the passengers to their starting points, an indicator being provided over each of these "local" vehicles to show to which district it is running.
Amongst the most popular of the company's services are the following:— Bognor and Littlehampton, daily, single
7s. 6d., return Ss. and period return 12s. 60. (on week-ends and Bank Holidays the day return costs 10s. 6d.) ; Brighton, •• daily, ,single 5s. 6d., return 6s. 6d., period 10s. (on week-ends and Bank Holidays the day return costs 9s.) ; Satitlisea and Portsmouth, daily, single 7s. 6d., return 9s., and us. (on weekend s and Bank Holiday-S the return costs 10s.). Other popular resort's regularly. served . include.„ Southend, Clacton, Bournemouth, Dover, Fastbourne, Worthing, • Ramsgate, Folkqstone, Margate and . Hastings. .
." Tours to. Places of Interest.
Evening :tours are also made by the Orange Coaches to Bok Hill, Shepperbin and -Epioin Downs, whilst an unusual feature is the "-London's Underworld" trip, Visiting Limehouse; :China Town, etc. • Other evening activities include the Provisionof Conches "running to the various. greyhound-racing tracks. Another feature is the arrangement if conducted day tours to Stoke Poges, Windsor and Hampton Court (Tuesdays and. Thursdays), to Tunbridge Wells, Crowborough Beacon and Ashdown Forest (Wednesdays and Sundays), and to Hindhead, via Guildford and Dorking (Thursdays only): Season tickets for • six days travel are also issued at 50s. The holder of one of these can make six consecutive journeys from the Brixton station to any resort served by the company and return each day to London.