Manchester's o-m-o plan a
Page 22
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
winner with PTE
• SELNEC PTE which inherited Manchester City Transport's plan to go over entirely to o-m-o in the Seventies, (CM November 24, 1967) has ordered 400 Farestat fare boxes. This means that the Executive is pressing ahead with the Manchester plan—free of the worry of how to run its o-m-o services jointly with other operators if these did not modernize, since it also absorbed 10 other municipal passenger transport undertakings.
The order, believed to be the largest single one placed in this country to date for o-m-o fare collection equipment, has been announced by Sabloc Automatic Systems Ltd., St. James House, Kensington Square, London, W8.
Farestat is claimed to be the first equipment of its kind to have been designed in conjunction with UK bus operators specifically for the needs of the industry. It consists of a fare box and cash box, a nine variation ticket issuer and a statistics cassette. The SELNEC order will equip all the Executive's one-man buses.
The passenger drops the exact fare made up of any variety of silver and/or copper coins in £ s d or decimal coinage into a large tray. The driver visually checks the coin (integral illumination is provided for night use) and depresses the appropriate fare button; the coins are then instantaneously cleared to the cash box, the relevant record is made and the ticket is printed from blank stock and is issued to the passenger. It is claimed that boarding times similar to those of a crew-operated bus are obtained.
Cash security arrangements are such that, once the passenger has inserted the fare, neither the driver nor the staff responsible for conveying the cash boxes from the buses to the cashiers have any access to the money.
As SELNEC PTE has specified early delivery, it is anticipated that Farestat fare boxes will not be in free supply until about August of this year, while ticket issuers and. statistics cassettes for adding to fare boxes as well as the complete equipment will be in free supply before the end of the year. A spokesman for Sabloc told CM that this did not preclude the possibility of supplying limited quantities to other operators in advance.