IPSWICH SATISFIED WITH TROLLEY-BUSES.
Page 15
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Up and down the country one hears of enterprising municipal authorities considering the merits of trolley-buses in substitution for tramcars, and in several instances it has been decided to discard the rigid system of passenger transport and to adopt the newer mode of locomotion as represented by the railless vehicle or the ordinary petrol-propelled bus. It certainly seems that the authorities at Ipswich are about to follow such a procedure, for in a recent annual report submitted to the council itis clearly shown that its experience with trolley-buses on a specific route has been highly satisfactory, and it is indicated that a committee is at present considering a proposal to dispense with tranicare altogether.
It was in September last that the council first put three trolley-buses into service on the Cornhill-Ipswich Station route as in experimental measure, but the vehicles proved so successful in use that a permanent service was subsequently established. The route was one that had never paid by itself.
The working expenses per car-mile for the tramcars and buses employed on this route are given in the report as follow :—
The foregoing figures are calculated on a basis of four tramcars and three buses. When this service was separated from others run by the council and served by tramcars on which ld. fares were charged, the earnings of the four vehicles from October 1st, 1919, to January 31st, 1920, were £1,157, whereas when the route was served by three oneman-controlled buses the earnings in the period from Octob tr 1st, 1923, to January 31st, 1924, were £1,176. A.s a result of the substitution of oneman-type trolley-buses for tramcars the wages of nine men have been saved and the service now pays for itself. It is mentioned in the report that this seems to indicate that an extension of the rail. less system of traction, even to the total abolition of the tramways, would be a financially sound policy.