Cab-rank Telephones.
Page 15
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The success of the cab-rank-telephone movement in London, to the end that. shelterless cab-ranks shall be equipped with telephonic facilities to enable calls to be communicated to them by would-be hirers, is a matter of great satisfaction to us. We worked out the scheme, more than three years ago, in conjunction with Mr. H. Lyon Thomson, and it was officialtg a:topted by the Postmaster-General early in 1912.
The writer became personally responsible for the subscription and maintenance of the first installation, which, installation was available, at the corner of Melbury Road in the main Kensington highway, shortly before the opening of the Olympia Show, in November, 1910. He was, however, relieved of that liability, shortly afterwards, by resolution of the General Committee of the Commercial Motors Users Association, to which body belongs the real credit for carrying the matter through all its stages to a successful issue, and being the means of securing the decision of Mr. Herbert Satnual to sanction the erection, at the 'discretion of the G.P.O., 'Of some hundreds of these useful. appliances. It was only last week, as the following reproduction of the original communication will show, that the writer was officially relieved of his personal obligation in the matter.
Amongst the chief reasons for our working so hard, in conjunction with the C.M.U..A., to obtain the necessary permission to put up the first of these cab-rank telephone sets, which procedure involved a special application to, and attendance at, the Kensington Borough Council, on the part of Colonel Crompton, RE., were the following :—(a) a wish to avoid the necessity for the use of piercing whistles by intending hirers, which practice is admitted to be a nuisance to so many people ; (b) a wish to encourage taxicab}ales to stand their vehicles on a greater number of ranks, and not to congest. the ranks in the vicinity of shelters ; (c) a. belief, since justified, that if some individual or association bore the cost of the first installation, the merits of the system would result, as they have done, in (sfficial recognition by the Government. The issue of this work is now seen.