if Anywhere " Ticket
Page 76
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Results Encouraging
riALLY " anywhere" tickets, which cost the passenger 10s. and allowed travel anywhere throughout the area of the company's stage services showed encOuraging results last. year, said Mr. John Spencer Wills, chairman, at. the annual meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus CO., Ltd., at Stratford on .Avon last week. Now that they had -become better known the results in 1959 should be even better, he said.
Mr. Spencer Wills mentioned this item after referring to the decline in traffic. He reported that progressive cuts in some services, where frequency was no longer justified by traffic volume, had amounted to little more than 5 per cent. of the total mileage operated.
He said that operations had been increased on a number of routes, but added that 64 per cent, of the company's services and 32 per cent. of the mileage were run at less than overall costs.
A new Birmingham-London express service would commence with the opening of the new motorway between the two cities. The service would run three times daily in each direction—with the journey time at 3 hr. 25 min.—a saving of two hours on the existing service. Specially modified coaches were being prepared for the service. [The Transport and General Workers' Union attitude towards it is reported on page 524j -Gr eat er efficiency generally was expected, said Mr. Spencer Wills, when the company's electronic computer was installed in the near future. But, he said, "our operations continue to be handicapped, and costs considerably increased, by shortage of staff at most garages."