PASSENGER.
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TRANSPORT
This Section deals with the 'Motorbus, the Char-a-bancs, the Motorcab, the Ambulance, SECTION and the Railcar..
" Omnibus"— For Everyone.
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attention big issue nis is forced ire e d)tses , just a period l al pe. l bralCiinl when spnobpeu I ar i e s TE.. . :which are in hand for doing in the English Provinces vhat has already . been accomplished . in so remarkable a manner in the Metropolis. Many isolated enterprises have already done •well.
London, or at any rate the inner zones of it, is approaching that stage in surface passenger-traffic development which will not permit of the placing of great numbers of further motorbuses in service. The outer suburbs, and, indeed, those separate boroughs and communities which are quite distinct from London and yet almost put of it, are already being generouslyiprovided with a new form of transport, to the detriment of many ill-constructed roads, we regret to add. Such districts can yet well absorb over a thousand further machines. That extensive branch of this great industry which has been called into 'being primarily to produce the motorbus for London and the motor char--banes for the British Provinces and Overseas has begun to turn in other directions in which • further great demand for such products may be conceived to exist. Three or four .great financial groups are, therefore, as we write, engaged in the preliminary bouts for precedence in respect of the development of widespread and co-ordinated provincial motorbus schemes for Provincial England.
That the establishment of services of this kind, owing to official municipal and tramway opposition, will not be so easy a task as that experienced in London is a foregone conclusion. Further, it is anticipated by those who know their book that not all of these proposals will be attended with ultimate success in regard to operation. Nevertheless, we foresee that, when next we have to write to our Overseas readers of motorbus developments , throughout the homeland, we shall have much to tell of the efforts that have been made from Metropolitan headquarters to secure profits comparable to those which are being earned so securely at the moment by the B-type, the Knight-Daimler, the Leyland, the Tilling-Stevens and the Clarkson steamer in and around London.
The char-h-banes season of 1913 has been a wonderful one all along the coast, and this class of passenger-carrying machine is definitely established as a practical factor in modern self-propelled traffic. Moreover, it is .a proved great money-earner, and that is a feature which never fails to make its appeal to those who are inclined to venture in respect of purchase.
The rnotorcab situation remains much as it was twelve months ago, with the exception that, if anything, the owner-driveris increasingly proving his claim that he can--serve the public better from many points of view than can the employee of a great operating company.