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OPERATING COSTS FOR MUNICIPAL MOTORS.
Page 131
Page 132
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An Explanation of the Principles Underlying the Methods of Compiling Our Schedules of Operating Costs.
INTO borough surveyor or borough engineer need be .1.11 told what his motor vehicles are costing him , to run. The organization of municipal accounts departments is too efficient for there to be any doubt upon that matter. There is no need for us, therefore, in this article, to set out any arguments in favour of keeping accurate records, as is invariably our practice when publishing tables of costs which are meant to help the ordinary commercial user of heavy motor vehicles. If every municipal officer was already experienced in the use and operation of all the almost endless variety of mechanically propelled vehicles which are now in use for communal purposes there would be no need for us to publish Tables at all. That, however, is not yet the case, and it has been borne in upon us that there is a demand for some independent and authoritative pronouncement concerning the actual cost of operation of typical vehicles to which reference may safely be made when the question as to the advisability of the adoption of mechanical traction for any purpose is being discussed. To that end we have compiled the Tables which appear on the following page. They do not pretend to be precise and unarguable statements as to the cost of operation of each or all of the types of machine to which reference is made, but they do afford, in every case, a fairly close indication of what the cost will be, provided that the machines are given reasonable care and on the assumption that the administration is not so lax as to allow of leakages either of materials wrongly allocated or of time improperly booked.
Unusual Basis of Calculation.
Our original idea, when planning this article, was that it should embody a series of Tables of Operating Costs similar in its arrangement to those other Tables drawn up in connection with machines commercially owned and operated, which Tables have for a score of years been published by us and are now recognized as the standard work of reference on the operating costs of commercial motor vehicles. A detailed examination of the problem, however, showed that, for the time being, at any rate, this was impossible—impossible, that is, if we were to follow our usual procedure of basing the figures embodied in the Tables on averages compiled from the actual experience of users. We found that there were too many gaps in the list to enable us to complete the Tables, and we were loth to forsake our usual practice, which has proved to be so sound.
Not only were there many blanks in the scale of vehicles, considering them from the point of view of load capacity, but there were too many varieties in any one type to allow of the tabular form being given to the .statistics of cost and yet maintain their usefulness. In explanation we may quote two instances. Take gully emptiers as one example. The variety in the design and cost of these machines is as the number of makes upon the market. Properly to tabulate their cost, according to our usual practice, would involve us In scheduling them according to the names of their makers and costing them accordingly, a procedure which would obviously lead to trouble of a most intense order I Then for the other example take that uinique specimen of a municipal motor vehicle, the Pagefield cleansing equipment. That actually deserves a table to itself, and should have such a table, to make the information concerning it complete. Yet to include such a table would involve us in proceeding to set out figures of cost for other equipment at greater length than is possible in a series of tables of this kind. We have, therefore, while including the Pagefield equipment as
a separate item, confined ourselves to citing an average example of its use, knowing full well that those who are particularly interested in the system can readily obtain the fullest particulars of its cost, based on authentic experience of its use, from the makers of the equipment themselves.
Wide scope of Our Investigation.
In an endeavour to make the Tables. as widely applicable as possible, yet so compact as to be easily used and ready of reference, we investigated a large variety of figures relating to many types and classes of machine. The scope which is open to us may well be
judged by reference to the other articles in this issue of The Commercial Motor, wherein are described all those several kinds of machine which have been evolved by motor manufacturers and municipal engineers working together to meet the exigencies of municipal work. In the end, however, we reduced the number of Tables which could be compiled from the sources of information at our disposal to the four
which follow. In one are included petrol lorries, designed for the conveyance of loads only, but fitted -with tipping mechanism. These are the vehicles commonly used by municipalities for the conveyance of refuse, road materials or sweepings and for similar purposes. In the second Table petrol vehicles again appear, and in that Table are included suckspecial machines as cannot reasonably be classified according to load capacity. In the third Table are steam vehicles, and in the fourth electric.
It will be obvious, even to those whose knowledge of municipal work is of the scantiest, that considerable latitude must be allowed in assessing costs for the work. Take one item only, the collection of refuse, work which is perhaps the most important that the municipal officer has to consider. The cost of this must depend very largely upon the way in which the refuse is placed for collection. It is usual, for example, to reckon on 54 stops per ton of refuse, but in that figure there is no allowance for the length of stop, which is governed by the distance which the refuse has to be carried before it can be placed in the vehicle. That distance may be anything from nothing—when the bin is stood on the edge of the kerb—to 10,800 yards per ton, corresponding to a distance of 200 yards per call. Moreover, there is still another variable factor, and that is the length of the haul from the place of collection to the disposal dump. That distance may be anything from half a mile to five miles.
Cost Per Mile of No Interest.
For this and kindred reasons municipal engineers are not greatly interested in the operating cost per mile. Tney think rather in terms of work done, in cost per unit of that work, whether it be the emptying of gullies, the collection of refuse, or the sweeping and cleaning of streets. Hence, a table compiled precisely on the lines we have standardized for commercial users would not be so useful to municipal officers and those readers of this journal who are concerned with the operation of municipal motor vehicles. We have, therefore, calculated the total costs on a daily basis, as that is a period common to all operations. With the information in that form, it seemed to us, the borough engineer or the boroughsurveyor, as the case might be, knowing what amount of any kind of work could be done in a day, or being in a position to estimate that amount fairly accurately, would he able, by reference to these schedules of cost per day, to arrive at reasonably accurate estimates of the total cost of doing die work with the help of motor vehicles. So much for the general basis of calculation. As for details, we have found it advisable -to revise our methods in a good many ways. -Since the queStioa of cost per mile does not arise, we have left out of consideration any differentiation between running costs and standing charges and have treated all items as being on the basis 4A standing charges. This may seem rather peculiar, having in mind the unalterable fact that the cost of operation depends so largely on the mileage. We have compiled the figures, however, from actual results achieved by municipalities all over the country, and it is their own figures which are quoted as being the 'cost per day for petrol, oil and other consumable stores which normally are written down as running costs. In the long run the system is sufficiently accurate for practical purposes, and above all things we must be practical. The fact is that the mileage run by these vehicles does not vary to any great extent, and if the cost of a given type and size of machine is quoted at a certain figure in one town, it is quite reasonable to suppose that it will be approximately the
same in another. At least we are justified, after taking an average of several such series of figures; in quoting that average as IA basis for calculation.
If, however, we have taken the figures for consumable stores from statistics of use, and have reproduced them as averages in our Tables, we have not held ourselves to be bound to do so in certain other respects. This is particularly worthy of note in connection with the cost of labour. • It is the habit of municipal officers, when setting out statements of cost of motor vehicles, to debit the vehicle with all the labour necessary in connection with the operation upon which the vehicle is engaged. That would not be a reasonable attitude for us to adopt in compiling these Tables, for we might thereby be giving a 'wrong impression of the actual expense of running the machine, which is actually all that concerns IA. We have, therefore, corrected any, figures for labour and reduced them to those necessary to comprise the wages of the driver only, making a further correction on normal figures of that kind, however, to allow for the fact that many of these vehicles do not work a full year. The number of working days per annum varies from 180 to 280. We have assumed an average of 250 and have modified the figures per day for wakes, licences, insurance and Interest to meet that special condition. We have, however, complied with the usual practice of municipal authorities in that we have allowed only 10 per cent. per annum for depreciation, and we have included the cost of tyres in that of maintenance and upkeep generally. The figures D58
have, of course, been brought up to date in respect of the price of .comMudities, and in that we have taken petrol to be Is. 2d. per gallon, coal 45s. per ton, electric current for battery vehicles at 2d. per unit and lubricating oil at 5s. per gallon,
We would like once more to emphasize the fact that the following figures are compiled from collections of actual working costs. They represent the average of results which have been obtained' all over the country and under all sorts of conditions. They may, in favourable conditions, be *proved, whilst in less favourable circumstances it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to equal them. That is an inevitable condition of acceptance of any kind of table of operating cost of motor vehicles.
Cost Not the Prime Standard for Judgment.
Finally, we must point out that cost is not by any means the only consideration: it is not even the first condition to be had in mind when deciding upon the advisability of purchasing motor vehicles. This is not put forward as a piece of special pleading ; it is not to be cynically regarded as a case of qui s'excuse s'accuse, for, as comparative figures will readily show,
the facts are that motor vehicles are, generally speak.
iug,cheaper than other forms of transport. The existence of factors other than cost must not be overlooked, even in an article such as this, almost purely concerned with cost as it is. The horSe, as is now admitted, is in itself one of the principal contributory causes of the aceumulation of refuse. The diminution in the number of them on the roads has resulted in a corresponding lessening of evils caused by flies bred bathe stables and on the dung-heaps which are inseparable from horse transport. Further, the speed with which refuse can be removed from inhabited areas when motors are the medium for that removal is an important factor in keeping down disease and combatting epidemics.
In other directions, too, the speed which the motor confers is of immense value, as, for example, in sweeping of city streets, wherein the use of a motor sweeper enables the main streets of a town, where the traffic is thick, to be swept clean in the early morning before that traffic begins to collect. Other and similar reasons for the preference for mechanical appliances will occur to our readers, and in every case those 'reasons would be sufficient to justify the Selection of motors in preference to horses, even were it not the case that, in the long run, the motor vehicle is the cheaper,