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AIR ROUTES AND BUS ROUTES.
Page 85
Page 86
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Contracts, Analogies and Forecasts. The Opportunity Offered for the Forging of Connecting Links.
By Edward S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E.,
THE Secretary of State for Air, Sir Samuel Hoare, speaking only a few days ago at a meeting of the Iraperial Conference held at No. 10, Downing Street, made some highly interesting pronouncements in respect of Empire air routes. He stoutly maintained that the developmeat of imperial air lines is vital to the problem of Empire defence, and gave an address of such a character that one was constantly reminded of analogies between air navigation and motorbus operatiOn.
If aeroplanes and airships were capable of being relied upon by the nation in 1914, so were motorbuses and other commercial motors, and if the former have been improved during the intervening 12 years, so have the latter. In fact, if we consider the results obtained during the recent demonstration of rigid-frame sixwheelers at Aldershot, the entry of motorbus and other commercial chassis into military calculations for the future promises to be more intimate and more extensive than hitherto. Sir Samuel Hoare postulated as follows :- "First, the Empire is in urgent need of better communications ; secondly, if the communications are to be improved, a sustained and united effort will be required. At the very moment when better communications are urgently needed, improvements in sea and land transport are being made almost Prohibitive by their increased cost."
Nobody can be indifferent to that succession of improvements in the means of air and land transport for which British manufacturers have become world famous, with the important point of difference to be noted that land transport at home is about to become more costly solely by reason of new taxation. The extra £3,000,000 a year to be recovered from the public in respect of road user will doubtless enable the railways to adjust their exceptional rates and charges in an upward direction by another 0,000,000.
Improved Machines.
Sir Samuel Hoare, with no unnatural prid'e, having regard to the important financial aid rendered by the Government, pointed to a long record of itnprovements in airship and aeroplane construction—in fusillages, ita engines, in directional control and in encouraging degrees of safety now achieved, the recent flight by Sir Alan Cobham being utilized to give point to his summary.
Can we not produce, I ask, in motorbus development, a corresponding list which, if not equally alluring to the public imagination, has at least attracted more public support in practice? These improvements include better and more comfortable bodies providing additional space per passenger, pneumatic tyres on a generous scale, adequate braking systems, good lighting and splendid regularity in running.
Designers and engineers throughout the British industry share the honours in both categories—air and land transport—but on the motorbus side owners have had to meet taxation instead of enjoying subsidies. The spheres are, it is true, as different as the State's treatment of those seeking to develop them.
New Facilities.
Contrasts between air travel and alternatives become more favourable to the former as the distance to be covered becomes greater. I shall have more to write about that towards the end of this contribution when I come to deal with charges. The aeroplane or the airship does give high point-to-point speed, comparative privacy and, as a rule—weather permitting— smoothness of conveyance. In regard to airships, Sir Samuel Hoare proceeded "The two airships which we'stre building should, with a normal load of freight and 100 passengers, be able to fly without refuelling in good weather a distance of some 4,000 miles:. The airship, being of great size and practically silent, will he much more comfortable than the aeroplane for long-distance journeys. Accommodation is being planned for 100 passengers, promenade decks, outside cabins and ample smoking and dining-rooms."
Few proprietors of motorbuses or motor coaches have yet aspired in any part of the world to the provision of comparable facilities in respect of either load capacity or length of journey, especially the distance covered,.but within their scope and limits of operation they have done fully as much in Britain. They have, throughout the provinces, provided new facilities for the masses who formerly had to walk in all weathers to the railway station, and on reaching the end of their journey to walk again. They maintain these facilities at the week-ends when most railway services go to sleep. The motorcar made good partly by reason ofthe new facilities it afforded, and the motorbus has brought like advantages to the millions who cannot afford ears.
Linked Services.
The Air Minister had a great deal to say about the importance of linking up. Two extracts must suffice. These read :—
"Would it be possible for the Government of . India to consider the question of extending the service across India to Karachi to Bombay and Calcutta? Would it be possible for the Government . of Burma to consider the possibility of carrying it a stage farther—to Rangoon? Might it not then be practicable to link with the civil line experimental flights of the Air Force flying boats that it is intended to station in the Far East, and might they not again " join up with occasional service flights of the Royal Australian Air Force from Australia? If, in the not, remote future, links can be inserted in some such way as I have suggested, a long chain of great tensile power will have been forged across the Empire's framework . . . ."
" So, also with Africa. Just as there must be an Empire Air -route to the Far East, stretching to Australia and New Zealand, so there must be an Empire Air route from London to the Cape with branches diverging to the West African dependencies. Here, again, a beginning (I admit a small beginning) is being made ' during the next few months. At enterprising pioneer, with the help of the Governments of Kenya, Uganda and the Sudan, has organized an experimental service covering 1,400 miles between Khartum and
Kisumu." .
I welcome all air-traffic developments, because at virtually every point of departure or arrival they create new demands for road motors.
Linked services might well become more and more
common in British motorbus operation. The Air Minister's advocacy -of the principle has parallels. It might be invidious to give examples in this article, and appear to be in the nature of advertising particular undertakings. Possibly, too, such communicating services are already too numerous for the space available to me. They are, however, in my view, far from
adequate to meet the public convenience and nowhere near completion. There is, therefore, this analogy between the general case of developments on air routes and bus routes, although the two are so far removed in many other respects. More linked services are urgently needed in all parts of the country.
Linked services and the making of connections by the public who use motorbuses cannot be made to depend upon the equivalent of the railway " A..B.C." or "Bradshaw." Several years ago a sustained effort was made by keen and responsible publishers to secure circulation and use for a motorbus guide called " T.B.R." ("Travel by Road "). It failed. The man in Cornwall, although interested in local connections there, was not prepared to buy a book telling him about similar connections in Northumberland. That position remains.
The development of linked services and connections is a matter primarily for companies and proprietors at vork in neighbouring areas, and there is evidence of a great public demand for co-ordination at the boundaries. Just as the through-running for enormous distances of airships and aeroplanes is held to be impracticable and uncommercial, so do like circumstances on a relatively small scale of distances hold good in the motorbus world. Regional and zone work is needed. Now is the time for 1927 programmes.
Low Charges.
Sir Samuel Hoare also remarked, "We are all too hard up for any one of us to undertake the heavy cost of an air route to Singapore or an air route to Cape Town. If, then, we are to form these routes, we must each of us insert our particular stone in the design."
Motorbus and motor coach owners, after a remarkably good summer, may not be hard up, but it is, I repeat, uncommercial for a particular undertaking to
extend too far afield. Yet many can insert their particular stones! It is not a question of avoiding competition, although in part one of non-interference with those who under licence from the local authorities concerned are giving satisfaction. The -desirable new development of the situation Is to couple up many routes
upon which local proprietors now give adequate service at reasonably low charges, and in these regards there is again a measure of analogy between air routes and bus 'Gates.
Low charges, one knows, may be actual or relative. The factors of convenience and time must be assessed and something allowed for benefits to the human system, such as absence of hustle and noise. The air is quieter than rail-cum-steamer. The motorbus is easier and more tranquil than walking-cum-rail-cum-walking. The average motorbus fare is below lid. per mile.
There may be little money saved by air betweecn London and Paris, but there is much saved to or from Amsterdam, Cologne, Berlin or farther afield. By motorbus, generally, the maximum economies are for average journeys below 15 miles, except in remote areas, where the average may be doubled or trebled. Air and road have this in common; they enable travellers to use one side of a triangle instead of two, and the triangle, as a geometrical figure, is not only useful to illustrate distance saved, but also the cutting out of bad methods and waste.
On With the Connections.
The more one contrasts the charges and performances of modern air craft and modern road public passengerservice vehicles with those of the railway, the more one understands why railway directors are uneasy. The British attempt at remedy appears to be electrification. British railways are also being forced to consider a system, where admissible, of wayside halts near those points at which the rails intersect highways.
I forecast a great extension of connecting motorbus routes and services in Britain. They may be contemporaneous with the new Imperial air connections which are so strongly advocated and confidently forecast by Sir Samuel Hoare. For 1926 my advisory forecast to owners of motorbuses was, "On With the Pneus." ; for 1927 it is, "On With the Connections." This advances, obviously, a plan only for those proprietors who can, in practice, maintain their services strictly' to the time-tables to which they profess to work. ,