Who Should Run Local Bus Service ?
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STOCKPORT Corporation and the North Western. Road Car Co., Ltd., are having a battle royal as to their respective rights as transport operators within the Stockport boundary. The North Western Traffic Commissioners have been set rather a knotty problem.
Representatives of the North Western concern, which runs services over every route out of Stockport, state that the corporation has gradually duplicated most of these services and that the two transport undertakings had entered into an agreement for the maintenance of the status quo.
It is agreed that this pact will be disturbed by a proposal, now before the Commissioners, for the establishment of a new service from Mile End, on the one side of Stockport, to Green End, on the Manchester boundary, with the ' understanding that eventually the service will be a through one into the centre of Manchester.
The North Western company not only objected, but also applied for a similar service, One argument on the company's behalf was that such a service would extract traffic from one of its present routes.
Mr. C. Wroth, transport manager to Stockport Corporation, was severely cross-examined as to the ethics of the situation, but he maintained his contention that the corporation was the authority with the right to cater for the residents of the borough. The North Western services, he said, were of the through class, and often failed to serve the local residents.
In the present instance the object was to serve a newly developed area remote from any existing tram or bus route,, Mr. Wroth could not agree to the service being run jointly on equal terms.
The dispute will be resumed at a third day of hearing fixed for Friday next, January 22.
MORE STAFFS BOARD AGREEMENTS.
FURTHER progress has been made in the proposal to set up a joint transport board in Staffordshire. It was announced last week-that provisional agreements had been reached with two more operators for the acquisition of their undertakings. Agreements covering 210 of the 500 buses in the Potteries district have now been reached.
The scheme to set up a board is being sponsored by Stoke-on-Trent Corporation, with the support of Newcastle-under-Lyne Corporation, The latter authority, last week, passed a confirming resolution in support of the promotion of the Bill to establish a joint board, although several members of the town council abstained from voting,
NEW TROLLEYBUS POWERS.
THE Minister of Transport has made a Provisional Order empowering Newcastle-on-Tyne City Council to extend its trolleybus system on additional routes in the city area. The council recently decided to introduce trolleybuses on another six miles of ' route along Welbeck Road, Stanhope Road and Church Street, Newcastle.
MORE BUSES FOR TRAMS IN LANCS
TWO Lancashire authorities, last week, approved the replacement of
trams by buses. Manchester City Council endorsed its transport cornmittee!s scheme for the conversion of part of the Cheetham Hill Road-Bury • Old Road group of tramways to hue working.
Bolton likewise upheld its transport committee's decision to replace trams on the Dunscar route by oil-engined buses, The council declined, however, to support the policy of abandoning the remainder of the trams at and when the track required renewal.
During the debate at Bolton it was stated that traffic had greatly increased on every tramways route which had been converted to bus operation. Since the trams were abandoned on the Great Lever route, the number of passengers carried had increased by 1,000 a day.
.U.A.S. BOOM ON NORTHERN ROUTES.
ALTHOUGH, as a whole, traffic on express road services has declined over the past few years, United Automobile Services, Ltd., appears to be experiencing a boom on its services from London to the north.
It is understood that the company is to apply to the Metropolitan and Northern Traffic Commissioners for the restoration of the facilities authorized before the services were cut down.
The company is said to have carried over 1,000 passengers to the north during the Christmas holiday, and many had to be turned away. Over 200 people arrived at King's Cross on Christmas Eve to catch the night coaches to the north, but all seats had been booked. The intending passengers spent the night in the station and travelled on Christmas Day. WALLASEY GAS BUS EXPERIMENT WALLASEY Town Council has sane. YV a further extension of the experiment of running a municipal bus on coal-gas .fuel, between Birkenhead and Wallasey.
Councillor F. W. Apperley said that, in the near future, the Wallasey bus would have 12 gas cylinders, which would weigh altogether about the same as two of the old ones, and stoppages for recharging would be much reduced.
Councillor J. R. Williams explained that the present bus had to make 24 calls per day for the purpose of recharging. This occupied 40-50 mins, a day. With new cylinders, the bus would have to make only eight calls, involving about 16 mins.' delay, SOUTHPORT BODY ORDER PROTESTS.
PROTESTS by the Amalgamated Engineering Union, the local Ratepayers' Association and employees of Vulcan Motor and Engineering Co., Ltd., have followed the acceptance by Southport Transport Committee of a Wigan tender for bus bodies.
It is stated that the Vulcan figure exceeded the 7-per-cent. margin allowed to local tenders, as compared withoutside quotations. The A.E.U. district committee has stated that the Vulcan works have absorbed all unemployed engineers in the district and asks that the council shall refer back the committee's recommendation.
CHILDREN'S TRAVEL QUESTION AGAIN
THE age limit for free travel by children on buses was discussed in Nottingham, last week, before the East Midland Traffic Commissioners. Objections and representations were heard to proposals to vary the conditions attached -to all road service licences in the area, where the age limit is not already three years, to provide that it shall be so.
On December 21, an inquiry was held' to decide whether the condition fixing the limit at three years should be attached to Leicester and Derby. Corporations' licences. The matter' was artjourned in order that the Commissioners might consider the framing of a condition which would permit the corporations to carry children as at present, and to permit private operators in competition with municipal services to continue, as at present, from the point where they entered into competition with those services.
In addition to the corporations, there were 10 other objectors.
Mr. B. de H. Pereira, for the railway companies, said that if there were different methods of charging by road and by rail, there would inevitably be unfair and wasteful competition.
Mr. J. H. Stirk, chairman, told the objectors that the Commissioners felt that the matter should be dealt with nationally. He hinted that, unless they had some new arguments to submit, they would be wasting further time.
Decision As reserved.
CORONATION SERVICES.
THE Metropolitan Traffic Commis]. sioner is to bear all applications relating to services in connection with the Coronation, at sittings on January 20-21. Special dispensation is being granted on Coronation Day.