BUS DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTH WALES..
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Difficulties which Beset Proprietors Operating in Besy Industrial Districts. Factors which Act Against the Development of the Movement.
riERTAIN of the bus companies and rivate owners in South Wales already have their arrangements well in hand for the approaching season—now about three months away—and they are setting out to develop trade along intensive lines.
The South Wales Commercial Motors, Ltd. of Cardiff and Bridgend, who are the Ltd., bus proprietors in South-east Wales, have prepared important plans for the development of their system, and these will be put into operation as 'from Easter. This company run a fleet of 30 buses, mainly composed of COmmer Car chassis carrying saloon bodies fitted with permanent or sliding all-weather roofs, and three Lancia saloon buses with bodies of a special type designed by the Northern Counties Engineering Co., of Wigan. These vehicles run on services between most of the South and Mid Glamorgan towns and villages and to Chepstow, in Monmouthshire, from NeWport.
Briefly, the limit of the company's sphere of operation in the north is at Pontypridd, the gateway to the Rhondda, Merthyr and Aberdare Valleys. the limit in the west being the area covered by the valleys radiating from Bridgend and Maesteg, in Mid-west Glamorgan.
In past years the company's bus services have been run to time-tables so drafted that buses arriving at Cardiff or Bridgend, the two principal centres in the company's area of working, connected with buses leaving the town in various directions, thus providing a service with only one change of vehicle.
The company have now come to the conclusion that during the summer months through services should be arranged between the principal industrial and business centres and the South Glamorgan sea coast at Ogmore-on-Sea, Porthcawl, and Southerndown, thus providing the public with facilities for spending a day at the seaside. It is intended that the buses on these services shall run strictly to time-table without the proviso of "weather permitting" that is generally incorporated in the arrangements made by coach proprietors, as distinct from those who run bus services. The through services planned for the company will run to time-table under all weather conditions, they will thus form 'a reliable express means of road communications available for, business people as well as pleasure seekers.
Moreover the directorate contemplates running weekly excursions at reduced fares to the places aforementioned, the 1340 privilege tickets being available for certain specified times on the buses run ning to the regular time-table. This service will not admit of a multiplicity of fare stages, and the reduced rate will, in all probability, apply only to passengers travelling beyond a certain distance.
From this company's point of view one of the drawbacks to the use of motor coaches for this class of service is that when any considerable distance is travelled, Several " dead " hours remain on hand for the vehicle and driver whilst the passengers explore the place visited. By using buses, however, as is the intention of the South Wales Commercial Motors Ltd., once the vehicles have been Moths-a, at, their destination they will continue to ply on their regular routes, returning to pick up excursionists at a prescribed time.
The company have recently added two 20-seater Lancia saloons to their fleet, and 'these are used on district services from Bridgend and Cardiff. The addition to the fleet of four vehicles, of a type not yet decided upon„ is also under consideration.
Questioned as to the status of the bus trade in Glamorganshire generally, Mr. A. Gray, the joint managing director of the company, emphasized the detrimea: tal effect of competition from proprietors who run irregular services. Every bus company of standing, he said, was faced with difficulties of this description,. anti trade, which should havebeen better this winter, With somewhat greater industrial stability than prevailed in the previous winter, could not be said to have been more profitable than in the winter of 1922-23.
The effect of this competition could be exemplified in several ways. It was, for instance, said Mr. Gray, generally agreed that in the populous districts a minimum interval. of 25 mins, between the times of departure should be allowed for inter-town, not purely local, services. Unfair competition had, however, caused a struggle between many proprietors to institute a service at intervals of five and ten minutes, with the result that, in cases where four buses were formerly employed with satisfaction to the public and the proprietors, as many as eight vehicles were now employed to carry the same number of passengers.
To such an extent had competition been introduced, ksaid our informant, that cases had been known where an " itregular " bus had set off on a route ahead of the vehicle running to a scheduled time-table, the man in charge of it soliciting custom at fares considerably below those charged on the vehicles maintaining a regular service.
The local councils have issued no mandate stipulating that competing vehicles should possess some form of distinction, with the result that in a number of instances buses owned by different proprietors, but apparently resembling one another in their exterior appearance, have been used by passengers possessing return tickets for one or other of the services; who, upon tendering their return ticket, have found themselves in the wrong vehicle. The remedy -for these anomalies lies in the enforcement by the councils concerned of the provisions of the Hackney Carriage Order, and they must also insist upon time and fare schedules being published and adhered to. Time-tables must, moreover, be drafted under the direction of the councils.
It is stated that if the councils in Clamorganshire formed a joint advisory transport committee on the lines of that instituted by the urban district councils in Monmouthshire it might help in the matter of the issue of licences.