INLAND MAILS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 21 August 1939, Page 12

INLAND MAILS

-1,500 ROAD CONTRACTS IMMENSE ANNUAL MILEAGE The transport of New Zealand's in- i land mails represents a feat of organisation hardly paralled by any other; national activity, for it provides with- J out 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 j 1.500 road services conducted by pri--1 vate contractors who also serve the | public in passenger and goods transport. As the Post Office has always followed the policy of utilising these private i 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 vehicle on ! our roads within a comparatively few [ years. The first occasion on which a motor vehicle was used lor mail trans-

port 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 mileages covered annually by the road services carrying mails: Annual Mileage. 1925 5,004.494 1935 8.366.208 1939 9.383.546 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 timetable 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 betaween 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 mails 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 only one-third can be reviewed each year, arrangements being made for the ensuing three years, and the Dominion sub-divided into thee large areas so that a uortion can receive attention every third year. The road services are in general the feeders of the rail, although there are cases where owing to the unsuitability of the railway time-tables 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 of launches in such localities as Bay of Islands and the Marlborough Sounds, where the col- | lection 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 InvercargillQueenstown 119 miles.