Systematizing Municipal Transport.
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THE NATURAL development of the rapid extension of fleets of power-driven vehicles belonging to corporations, borough and urban district councils must -be the concentration of each fleet, so as to secure economical maintenance and efficient employment of the vehicles, but this logical outcome of a change over from the use of horses and carts (in many cases under hiring • contract) is, curiously enough, being resisted by the officials controlling the departments of many municipalities.
It is easy to understand the opposition, but we submit that it is illogical. Each department likes to be self-contained and to have the use of certain vehicles. for the conduct of its work at an instant's notice. The electricity department wants to be able to dispatch a vehicle for a load of cable reels just at the time which is entirely convenient to the department: the highways department objects to have to refer to any official outside of its own section where there are a few loads of road material to be handled.
But, a much broader view than this must be accepted. Horses and carts can with no disadvantage— even with advantage—be stabled in a number of yards in a municipal area. With ordinary administrative facilities, such a method makes for time-saving. But, with motor vehicles, there are two reasons for concentration. The first is the desirability of avoiding idle hours for vehicles and drivers. The speed with which each haulage job can be accomplished, as compared With -the capabilities of the horsed vehicle, means that, with skilful organization, the motor lorry or cart can be kept fully employed the whole day and the whole week, and its full capacity for economy be brought into play. The second reason is the undoubted economy which can be effected by a compieta, garage installation, with 'adequate repair facilities and well-equipped stores, are justified when a -large fleet is to be dealt with, but not for each small unit of the fleet.
With such concentration, it pays a corporation or a borough council, having jurisdiction over a large area, to employ a qualified transport manager to control the use and employment of the vehicles, and an equally qualified maintenance manager to supervise garaging, repairs, etc. Further possibilities are opened up by such a seheme—the building of the bodies required for the vehicles, exactly suitable to the work of the district ; the use of quickly-interchangeable bodies and means for effecting the change, and so on. There is also to be considered the possi bility of two or more neighbouring Councils co-operating in such a scheme, because, if the transport department be established as an entirely separate business, the work being charged up to the various departments of the council or corporation at market rates, no difficulty can arise on the finance side that .i13 hot possible of ready adjustment.
Many large municipalities could, by means of such an undeitaking as we have outlined, , save anything from 25,000 to 250,000 a year, according to the size of the area and the consequent amount of the haulage work entailed.
The Relation of Legislation and Taxation.
iT IS WORTH noting that, if the new scheme of taxation be adopted, it will result in bringing into existence a new relation between taxation and legislation. This is due to the fact that, in the new scheme, the actual use of the road by the vehicle is not necessarily reflected by the amount of the tax. The most that can be done under a system of licence duties is -to reflect the proper use of the road, having regard to the weight of the vehicle, its likely speed, and consequently its probable annual mileage.
It stands to reason that, if the speed of a vehicle of -given weight be increased, the result will. be a larger annual mileage and a certain amount of 'additional wear of the roads. This latter is due to two causes, namely, the increased distance travelled and the fact that the increase of speed causes an increase of the shock's due to road inequalities, which must, to some extent, accelerate the disintegration of the road. Thus, if we arrive at some scheme of licence duties based on weight and probable mileage andgenerally regarded as equitable, the equity of the system may be distorted subsequently by any changes in the rules and regulations laying down the conditions under which the vehicles may use the roads.
If, for instance, we were to permit a tractor with a trailer to travel at eight instead of five miles per hour, leaving the speed limits of all self-contained vehicles as they are now, we should presumably be altering the proportional amount that the tractor ought to pay in taxation as compared with other vehicles. If we assume that the present scheme means an. increase of 35 to 40 per cent, in the taxation of the average vehicle, then, it we were to raise the speed limit by a similar percentage, we should be paying probably no more per ton-mile in taxation than we should have done under the old system.
It is, therefore, reasonable to ask whether, in arriving at the present scale proposed, those responsible have assumed the maintenance of the present rules and regulations, or have, rather, assumed that these will be amended in favour of motor transport at a very early date., We know that the whole question is under review, but we do not know just how far that review has gone. If we may fairly take it that the Ministry intends to ease some of the restrictions at present in force, then we may be disposed to accept without demur a scale of taxation which would, in other circumstances, be regarded as an excessive burden.
Present-day Horseless Sundays.
ASCHEME which at the time gave rise to some degree of good-humoured. witticism was a proposal, by a, former Editor of this journal, a good few years ago, to test the effect upon the cleanliness of our streets of forbidding their use on a chosen Sunday to all horsed vehicles. The proposal was for a Horseless Sunday. The original scheme should have been quite practicable and should have involved very little inconvenience ' • it might easily have resulted in not a little useful information being obtained which, in those days, would have been invaluable for propaganda purposes., But the idea had to be abandoned because of certain technical objections which were taken, and which rendered it impossible to secure complete co-operation from all road users for the short period intended. How many of us realize that, but a few short years afterwardsç quite a number of the principal streets, in the Metropolis particularly, are actually, now almost entirely devoid of horsed traffic? It is a fact that one may stand, for instance, in Regent Street and fail to notice a single horsed carriage or cart amongst, say, over 200 motorcars, motorbuses and motor lorries. Many parts of the Metropolis are already, for all practical purposes, horseless!
The process is going on steadily and slowly elsewhere throughout the country, but, of course, nowhere to the same extent as in the Metropolis. We have already very nearly arrived at the horseless age ! How much further we dare push the process during our present complete dependence upon liquid fuels, or, at any rate, upon the liquid fuels that we are at present using, is a, matter for grave speculation. There is food for very serious thought in this connection, for any Of us who cares to stand and watch the streams of traffic now almost entirely composed of petrol-propelled vehicles with an occasional steamer in line, and to ponder upon the effect of any considerable limitation to supplies of the paraffinderived fuels.
There is very urgent need indeed for some real alternative to petrol. The electric vehicle is filling a little space in the scheme, but not to such a sufficient extent as to warrant its classification as an alternative of any moment for pleasure and commercial motor vehicles. We must definitely have some really practical alternative in vast quantities readily adaptable. We have been toying with alcohol for some years. Much progress has been made with benzoic, but we are still, to a disastrous extent, in the hands of the petrol companies, and dependent upon liquid fuel produced beyond the seas. Nothing like sufficient energy is being displayed in this matter. We are talking a lot and writing too much. We are gloating over the expansion of the employment of motor vehicles and we are disgracefully short-sighted and negligent in this matter of fuel. We are not caring what is to feed our engines to-morrow, for we have petrol to-day—even if it is over 3s. per gallon to the commercial vehicle user.
Liquid fuel is the life-blood of the industry. We are all, mol•e or less, content with the assumption that the risk in the way of ultimate paralysis of transport is not a very grave one. This is a grave error. The risk is considerable. A great movement must be initiated at once for more virile and more enthusi
014 astic search for a, home-produced alternative. Those who do not, at present, feel that the need is here, are recommended to pause and watch the traffic for a few moments on the next .occasion that business, Or pleasure, takes them on foot down one of the principal thoroughfares in London. If the rapidly growing horselessness of our thoroughfares does not convert them into enthusiasts in the search for a new fuel, nothing will—and they will deserve to revert to the horse!
Roads for All—Taxation for All.
THE VOICE of the employer of horses is being heard in the land. Perhaps, he scents taxation for road maintenance—a thing which he has never had to suffer in the past, and which, must be anathema to his feelings of sportsmanship. In every hunting county, we shall be told, as in some we are already being told, how dangerous it is to take horses along the hard surfaced roads, which the motors are ,rolling so smooth that lady travellers could almost see their faces in them!
Yet, somehow, that curiously inconvenient faculty, memory, recalls much earlier complaints that motors destroyed the roads. Surely the horse owners cannot expect to have us both coming and going! • Perhaps the explanation is that we found the roads so easily capable of being scattered over the countryside in the form of dust that we set to work and improved them, to such an extent that reasonable wear now does them good instead of harm, and horsemen, passengera in horsed vehicles, pedestrians and others can now travel over the roads in greater condor t— indeed, far greater comfort than was ever the case 10, 15, or more years age.
The ways out of the trouble are simple enough. The development of rapid road transit must go on. It is necessary for our general good and, as the dominant form of road traffic will be that portion which is motor driven, the roads must be made to suit the char-acteristics of the greater volume. Horsed traffic must accommodate itself to the change. New methods of shoeing must be adopted, for the horse is by no means properly shod for its work, and taxation must be suffered with the object of securing for the horse a suitable surface,•which gives him (when better shod than he is to-day) a firm foothold and, at the same time, does not re-introduce the dust evil which all road users are glad to have dismissed for ever.
Motor Cinemas.
HE FORMATION of a public company for the purpose of employing motor vehicles in order
to make it possible to give cinema shows at places not possessed of properly equipped theatres is an interesting indication of the extreme ubiquity of motor transport. We are not concerned here with the question of whether the scheme is a sound one from a commercial point of view. Obviously, a good deal of advance organization will be necessary. The point is, however, that properly equipped motor vehicles are recognized. to 'be capable of performing the somewhat numerous duties that would be necessary in this connection. The plant and the staff required for the cinema shows can, of course, be easily conveyed by motor from point to point. It is, moreover, possible to turn the vehicles, when stationary, into small, but fairly complete electric power stations. By carrying a sufficiency of cable the current generated by the vehicle engine can be conveyed to any points where it may be required -either for power or for lighting purposes. Thus, what we call the mechanical side of the proposal can be easily provided in a satisfactory manner, and Whether the proposition proves directly profitable or not, it remains evident that the idea is a sound one as applied to schemes of propaganda, aiming at educating public opinion rather than at direct profit.