EFFICIENC NYS
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By A. A. TOWNSIN, A.M.I.Mech.E.
THE past few years have been difficult ones for many coach operators, with a tendency for traffic to be lost to private car competition, among other problems. Expansion under these conditions is far from easy, so that the question that comes to mind when one encounters a concern that has grown in size despite them is " how is it done?" The answer, so far as Kendrick Transport, Ltd., of Dudley, is concerned, might be said to lie in painstaking organization, good relationship with the customer, and a willingness to go after the business rather than expecting it to present itself.
The company has a fleet of 32 coaches and is the largest operator with excursion and tour, and express licences in a large part of the industrial area to the west of Birmingham known as, the Black Country. Three general types of operation are undertaken, and of these the excursions and tours business is probably the best known to the public. A speciality is, however, made of private hire work, while works services operated on express licences form the " bread-and-butter " side of the business.
The works services include all the work of this nature B28 operated for Cadbury's, the choco. manufacturers. Six coaches are used o five-day week basis carrying won employees from various points in Black Country to the Cadbury works Bournvilie on the outskirts of Birmi ham in the morning and in the rev( direction in the evening. A similar num of vehicles operates to and from works of Clifford Williams, cloth manufacturers, of Smethwick, again o five,clay week basis. Baggeridge Colli( of the National Coal Board, is opera on a three-shift system and f Kendrick coaches are engaged in cat • ing workers to and from the pithead. " last-mentioned service involves vehil being on the move between 4.30 a.m. 11 p.m.
Day, half-day and evening tours are operated from so 30 licensed departure points. Many of these are in Duc and its immediate neighbourhood, but others are in vani parts of the Black Country, the most distant from company's headquarters being three in West Bromw A booking agent is generally to be found near e departure point, A large proportion of the day tours h the various resqrts on the coasts of North Wales and Lan shire as their destinations althongh London and the So Coast are also visited. Beauty spots in the Midlands the Marches of Wales largely figure in the lists of half-1 and evening tours.
Printed Publicity Matter Four tours programmes are published, covering Dudley, Bradley, West Bromwich and Lower Gornal gro. of departure points. The Bradley programme calls special treatment because the company's licence restricted to two coach departures per day, and the f gramme has to be arranged with this limitation in ml Considerable use of printed programme leaflets is mt.
these are arranged to give a comprehensive list of rs departures in an easily read form.
4r. R. J. Oldham, the general manager, is a great ever in the value of making and keeping good relation)s with the customer. This is especially true of the siderable private hire business and a good deal of Jble is taken in co-operating with the organizers of ings. A particularly interesting production is the private
and tours handbook compiled by Mr. Oldham, of ch some 7,000 copies have been printed for distribution actual or potential organizers of private party tours. s is a 40-page booklet, giving an illustrated list of places districts that can be reached during day, half-day or ling outings with brief details of the type of attraction I offer and the route normally taken. An interesting 11 speciality, much favoured in the Black Country, is the day morning tour, with breakfast at some point of call
en route. There is also a list of special events, such as exhibitions, race meetings and flower shows which may appeal as the basis for private hire work, as well as more general information. Advertising matter, mainly contributed by restaurants and amusement parks in places mentioned in the text, provides revenue to offset the cost of production. Further liaison with organizers of outings is given by Mr. Lawson Griffin, who is manager of the West Bromwich branch and the company's outside representative.
The system of booking private hire work is carefully designed to give a double check so as to remove all possibilities of any confusion leading to the non-appearance of the coach at the appointed time and place. Each job is given a reference number and entered in a master file with details of the requirements including any catering or theatre seats if these are being booked by Kendrick's. A list of recommended caterers is kept to assist party organizers.
As well as the completed fileof private hire bookings, other files are kept for quotations, customers pending and caterers pending. All this work is handled at the company's head office in Wolverhampton Street, Dudley, which is also a booking office for tours and receives bookings for the latter from
the 30 agents in various parts of the Black Country.
Individual tours bookings are handled by making a daily return of copies from the agents to Wolverhampton Street, where a master sheet for each tour is maintained. When the agent receives a booking application for a tour due to depart within 24 hours he must then check by telephone. The ticket issued gives full details of the time and place from which the passenger is to be picked up.
The traffic office, which is at the company's garage at Brewery Street, Dudley, is in effect the link between the head office and the actual vehicles and drivers. Here Mr. Len Horton, the traffic foreman, and his assistant, Mr. John Haden, are responsible for the allocation of coaches and drivers as well as the maintenance of traffic records in general. Liaison between the offices at Wolverhampton Street and Brewery Street is a key feature of the organization. All correspondence relating to private hire work is transferred from the head office to Brewery Street a week before the outing is due to take place. A daily message book is also kept and a practice is made of reading through the list of jobs over a private telephone two days before the date for which they are booked.
This system is found to• suit the needs of the company's particular type of work, allowing more flexibility of operation than would be possible with over-elaborate booking arrangements and yet preventing the confusion liable to arise if records are inadequate. An example of the flexibility is the practice of fixing the initial departure point for the individually booked tours in accordance with the loading from the various pick-up points. The fact that the traffic office has to stay open from very early in the morning until late at night for the colliery services is often found useful for other purposes.
Importance of the Driver
Another aspect of good customer relationships is the driver's contact with passengers. Mr. Oldham considers that this can almost make or break the concern's good name, because from the passenger's point of view the driver is the firm, to all intents and purposes. Supervision of loading and tour operation generally is by a system of spot checking by a member of the management, one object of which is to maintain the personal contact on which a great deal of this type of business is based.
Most of the daily services are operated from Brewery Street garage, where, in addition to the traffic office already mentioned, the company's overhaul and machine shop facilities are. situated. Another large garage, together with a booking office, is situated at Princes End, Tipton, and a smaller one at Bradley is also used. Centralized garage facilities for the fleet would be preferred but suitable sites in the district are exceedingly difficult to find.
The present fleet is based entirely on Bedford chassis, n30 being made up as follows: _2 SB! Plaxton seaters, 12 SB3 Duple 41-seaters, 2 SB Du 38-seaters, 8 SB 36-seaters (6 Burlingham Yeates), 6 SB Duple 33-seaters and 2 OB Du 29-seaters. All but the two SB1 models, wh were delivered last year, are petrol-engined.
In the earlier post-war period the Kendt fleet was largely composed of the heavier engined type of vehicle. With the introduct of the Bedford SB it was considered t coaches based on this type of chassis would better suited to the company's needs. As as savings in capital expenditure there was additional refinement in running obtained v the use of a petrol engine. The use of a ligl vehicle meant that fuel consumption, averag about 10 m.p.g., did not seriously increase compared with other vehicles, whilst reduction in tyre and spare part costs could be anticipai In practice this policy worked very well, and the rec swing back to diesels has come about only as a result the availability of engines of this type in the SB cha5. coupled with the need to cut running costs further to rr increasing expense in other directions. The change b from petrol has not been made without some thought the passenger comfort aspect, but Mr. Oldham consit that the bodybuilder, by the use of sound deaden materials, can play an important part in minimizing amount of engine noise transmitted to the passer compartment. The two SB1 diesels have been giving i consumption returns of approximately 16 m.p.g.
High Mileages
The Bedford 300 Cu. in, petrol engines fitted in majority of the Kendrick vehicles are generally overhat at 120,000 miles, with a piston and liner change at a furl 95,000 miles. No hard and fast rule is laid doWn for work, however, and one engine has now run over 298, miles without any major replacements. It was strippe< 130,000 miles and found to be in such good condition I it was reassembled with the original parts. Carl running-in by the original driver of this coach is consid( largely to be the secret of its excellent record.
The remainder of the chassis units have given equ satisfactory results, with the exception of a series of ft spring breakages experienced at one time. It seems poss that these could be blamed partly on the poor conditiot some of the Black Country roads. Tecalemit Syndrom automatic lubrication equipment is regularly specified chassis for the Kendrick fleet, and is considered to materially to the life of many items.
Until the recent extension of the maximum legal din sions to 36 ft. long by 8 ft. 21 in. wide, the company ten in recent years to favour the largest available seating a city, and have purchased 14 coaches of the 41-seater 1 since 1957. Mr. Oldham is, as yet, a little doubtful al the use of ultra-large coaches on some of the narrow winding roads in Wales which frequently form part of company's routes. He also feels that operating costs vic be bound to rise because of the need to use a heavier of vehicle, although the economic advantages of increased seating capacity itself are considered attrac I the other end of the scale, Mr. Oldham does not feel the purchase of new small-capacity coaches would be ifiable for the company's type of operation. The two ford OB 29-seaters are retained in the fleet because are in good condition and meet the occasional demand a small vehicle.
he company carries out its own overhaul and repair k under the supervision of Mr. W. Bakewell, chief !hanic. Spare units are maintained in stock, and units .oved from chassis are overhauled on the premises. A l-equipped machine shop is capable of dealing with all the more specialized type of work. Five of the six tat" vehicles, which date from 1951, were overhauled year and granted 4-year certificates of fitness.
'yres are purchased outright, and include Avon, thelin and Dunlop products. The Avon company's fitter -ies out a regular check on all the tyres in the fleet, a ,ice which is of great help to the Kendrick maintenance F. Similar appreciation of good service was expressed Mr. Oldham in connection with fuel supplies. The
willingness of the local Power Petroleum Co. depot to come to the rescue when unexpected demands caused a shortage played a large part in the decision to obtain all fuel from this source. On one occasion a 500-gallon delivery was made within half an• hour. Shell Rotella lubricating oils are specified.
Approximately one-third of the fleet is delicensed at the end of the coaching season and remains laid up until Easter. Overhaul work is, so far as possible, concentrated into this period, and an interesting point is that anti-freeze is used in the entire fleet, including the vehicles which are not in service. The risk of expensive damage due to failure to drain a cooling system, whether because of negligence or a blocked drain tap, is considered to justify this expense.
Kendrick is an old-established name in the Black Country and the concern has come a long way since it was founded shortly after World War I. Nowadays the company's coaches cover 600,000 miles and carry 800,000 passengers in a year. Mr. N. C. Kendrick, owner of the business, can look back on a great deal of progress since those early days.