Joint Accounting Makes for Efficiency
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Many European Undertakings Incurring Losses : Efforts to Improve Efficiency DESCRIB1NG, as an ominous sign of a crisis, the failure of many European transport undertakings to make a profit, Mr. Mross stated that of 55 bus undertakings providing answers to his questionnaire, only 19 had succeeded in avoiding a loss. Out of a total of 45 tramway undertakings, 18 had made a profit.
A joint accountancy plan adopted by 42 undertakings in the West German Federal territory had enabled the efficiency of both vehicle operation and maintenance to be greatly improved. The plan was based on a statistical .method of analysing performance and results, and could be used to evaluate the costs of the different services and In compare the financial expenditure of the 'various undertakings.
Repair-shop Statistics
The efficiency committee of the German Association of Public Transport Undertakings, Essen. had developed a statistical system for large and average-size repair shops which was obtainable from the International Union of Public Transport.
Referring to the importance of efficient office work, Mr. Mross suggested that use could be made of electronic systems. Many of these had been perfected.
Dealing with the growing influence of private cars on traffic congestion in towns, Mr. Mross claimed that the speed of public transport vehicles was ;educed in inverse ratio to the increase in cars. Replies from 49 European undertakings had shown that 39 had to combat the problem.
After stating that questions regarding the most efficient type of vehicle to employ-the motorbus, trolleybus or tram—could not be answered in the paper, Mr. Mross indicated the related decisions of a number of European undertakings.
These included the replacement of 1,600 trolleybuses by motorbuses by London Transport; the abandonment of trams in favour of motorbuses and trolleybuses by the Marseilles, Lille and Brussels undertakings; the substitution of motorbuses for trams by the Strasbourg Tramway Co.; the removal of tram lines in the narrow central streets of Mulhouse; the use of trolleybuses with trailers in place of trams in Lausanne: providing motorbuses for all services in the central area of Rome and trackless vehicles for the centre of Barcelona; and the abolition of tramways by 1970 in Aarhus and replacement by motorbuses. The Nice Tramway Co. had employed motorbuses and trolleybuses in place of trams since 1953.
Centres in which tramways would be retained, v ith motorbuses, in the main, providing feeder and external services, included I lelsinki, Antwerp and Basle, and the German towns of Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hanover, Cologne, Essen, Bremen, M tilheim and Duisburg.
The employment of large-capacity vehicles with a through circulation of passengers was a consequence of increasing traffic congestion. This had also necessitated the use of vehicles with improved performance and braking power.
A contributory factor was the higher wages paid to staff: in Hamburg wages had increased by 119 per cent. between 1925 and 1953, whilst fares collected by a conductor during a shift had risen by only 16 per cent.
The introduction of large-capacity vehicles on one service had increased their carrying potential in terms of passenger-kilometres by 10 per cent., whereas the number of conductors and drivers had been reduced by 23 per cent. and 8 per cent, respectively.
Sitting Conductors Collect More In Copenhagen, the receipts of sitting conductors were from 4-5 per cent. higher than those of mobile conductors, and in other towns the increase varied from 3-4 per cent. All the 45 undertakings giving information on largecapacity vehicles had stated that their use yielded favourable results', Stopping time at junctions, and during peak periods, was sometimes prolonged, but
not seriously. Several undertakings stated that simultaneous entry and exit encouraged orderliness.
Reviewing the applications of oneman operation, Mr. Mross said that the experience of American operators had shown that the system was practicable in city traffic if zonal fares were charged. In Kiel, an experiment with sectional fares had been successful, fares being collected with the aid of a .
T.I.M. ticket-printing machine. Previously the single-fare system was considered essential to efficient .one-man operation in cities.
Undertakings that had changed over entirely to one-man operation included those in the Hague. Antwerp, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Bergen, Aarhus and Bordeaux. The majority was employing one-man operation on feeder and suburban services, short routes and so on. The system was more common on motorbuses than trams. In some cases it had not increased running times.
Figures for 1953 received from 55 undertakings showed that the average
vehicle kilometres per head was 8,700. The average of those undertakings which had adopted one-man working was much higher; three recorded outputs per, head between 14,000 and 16,000 vehicle-kilometres per year.
In Hamburg, the use of T.I.M. machines in place of blocks of tickets had reduced, by 39 per cent., the time required by stationary conductors to issue complicated tickets, and by 30 per cent. in the case of mobile conductors. A welcome improvement in ticket machines would be the recording of original and final numbers and the . values shown on the counters, giving them a more general application.
Ten undertakings sold tickets in advance. In some instances the payment of the correct fare was a condition of carriage.
The division of duties as an aid to efficiency could be employed to its greatest advantage if additional staff from other sections was transferred to vehicle duties during daily and seasonal peak periods. About 20 per cent, of the 55 bus undertakings' did make use of their repair-shop staff at these periods.
Analysing the factors which determined whether piece-work was desirable, Mr. Mross said that it could be applied without difficulty to medium
sized depots. Payment by results necessitated a tightening-up of the organization; it was the compulsory nature of such work which gave the method its greatest value.
The few undertakings which organized repairs on this basis reported favourable results. They included those in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Malmo, Bergen, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, Cologne and Essen. Advantage might be taken of the experience of manufacturing industries, representatives of which should take part in a study of the subject under the segis of a committee formed by the I.U.P.T.