THE INLAND MAILS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12823, 18 August 1939, Page 2

THE INLAND MAILS

-1,500 ROAD CONTRACTS IMMENSE ANNUAL MILEAGE The transport'of New Zealand’s in-, land mails represents a feat of organisation hardly paralleled by any other national activity, for it provides without fail, day after day the means of cheap and certain communication to the most remote parts of the Dominion. The back-bone of the inland mail service is of course the 3,300 miles of rail routes which constitute the main stream of mail traffic, the tributaries being over

1,500 road services conducted by private contractors who also serve the public in passenger and goods transport. As the Post Office has always followed the policy of utilising these private road services, the growth of its business in this sphere provides a vivid picture of the development which has taken place in the use of the motor y vehicle on our roads within a comparatively few years. The first occasion on which a motor vehicle was used for mail transport in New Zealand was in 1903 between Rotorua and Taupo. The enormous growth of road motor transport since then is shown by the following details of the mileage covered annually by the road services carrying mails: Annual Mileage 1925 5,064,494 1935 8,366,208 1939 9,355,546 Passenger and goods services, newspaper deliveries and ' even the rounds of country tradespeople are utilised by the Post Office for mail transport, and these official arrangements have an influence in maintaining the regularity of road services, the importance of delivering the mails according to time-table being fully recognised by the contractors, who under the most difficult conditions make it a point of honour that the mails must get through. The Department does not expect super-

human efforts, but it appreciates the high standard of regularity achieved by its contractors. A great variety of road services must be carefully synchronised so that the flow of the mail traffic is continuous, the making of connections between railway and road and the linking up of many road routes on a continuous schedule being points which have to be observed in arranging the contracts. Although the carriage of inland imails by road services represents a substantial proportion of the Department’s annual expenditure, the cost of the service is not unreasonable because, generally speaking, it is based on the regular use of motor vehicles for other public purposes, and the Post Office, subsidy is only a portion of the gross revenue of the contractor. The contracts are so numerous -that normally one-third can be reviewed each year, arrangements being made for the ensuing three years, and the Dominion subdivided into three large areas so that a portion can receive attention evei’y third year. The roa t d services are in general the feeders of the rail, although there are cases where owing to the unsuitability of the railway timetables arrangements have to be made for road transport on a route parallel to the rail. It is also necessary to use river and harbour services, and the regular trips of launches in such localities as Bay of Islands and the Marlborough Sounds, where the collection of cream' for dairy factories is associated with the distribution of the mails. Some of the road routes used for mail transport are fairly long, the Napier-Gisborne contract involving 159 miles of transport in each direction; Otiria to Kaitaia, and Awanui (North Auckland) 73 miles; Te Kuiti-New Plymouth 109 miles; and Invercargill-Queenstown 119 miles.