Tramway Finance.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19056, 19 July 1927, Page 8

Tramway Finance.

It would be reasonable to conclude from the statement presented to yesterday's meeting of the Tramway Board by way of comment upon the Government Statistician's analysis of the finance of the tramway systems of tho Dominion, that Christchurch has almost the best and most profitable of these public services. The percentage of operating expenses to receipts is lower in Christchurch than in any other town except Dunedin and New Plymouth, the former of which has a very profitable and successful system. The operating expenses per car-mile are lower than in any other town except New Plymouth, whose tramway •system is so new and small that it is not worth bringing into a comparison. Our tramways are able to collect a good deal more in fares per passenger per 100 chains than Dunedin, Auckland, or Wellington. Yet somehow they do not make money. They would be losing heavily, indeed, if the Board had to pay for power at the same rate as Wellington or Auckland. Auckland uses 2J times as many units as Christchurch for tramway haulage, but its power costs are five times as great as the power costs .of the Christchurch Board. Wellington uses only about 20 per cent, more power, but pays 100 per cent, more for it. It ia the relatively cheap power obtainable, here that saves the Board from a very heavy annual loss. This cheap power, as a factor favourable to good financial results, is supported by the flatness of the tramway area—a circumstance which, as the Government Statistician points out, and the Tramway Board apparently agrees, "would "tend to minimise haulage, wear and "tear, etc., and render. the use of " trailers possible." These are advantages which may fairly be regarded as fully offsetting this disadvantage of the flatness of the tramway district' that it "causes the population to be "much more widespread than in the " other cities, thus rendering necessary "a longer system for the same (or, "in fact,.fewer) passengers." The ! Government Statistician, whose words [ those are which we have just quoted,,

adds: "Consequently overhead charges "are proportionately higher." But actually the overhead charges are not "proportionately higher" in Christchurch than in the other cities. They are higher than in Wellington (5.48 pence per car-mile as against 5.42 pence), but they are lower per carmile than in Dunedin. The operating expenses per car-mile in Christchurch are kept down, as we have seen, by the relative cheapness of the power, but what also helps them to be low is the needlessly large number of carmiles. (Some of the operating expenses are independent of the mileage run.) It is- perhaps here that the Board might profitably look for some means of reducing, not the operating expenses per car-mile (which might even rise), but the total operating expenses. And this might also furnish the Board with the means of increasing those car-miles which are really profitable.