THE EASTER TRAFFIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12856, 3 May 1905, Page 5

THE EASTER TRAFFIC.

RECORDS BY RAIL AND TRAM. As indicated in the Herald last week, the holiday traffic upon the Auckland railways, and upon the electric cats during Easter week exceeded all previous records.

The railway returns show that from April 19 to' April 24, inclusive, 12,000 holiday excursion tickets were issued upon the Auckland section, exclusive of the tickets which were taken, out in the ordirary way. This represents in actual cash about £3500, or £500 more than was taken during the same period of 1904, when 10,000 holiday excursion tickets were issued. While the detailed returns show that there has been a proportionate increase in the traffic all along the line, they also demonstrate a marked improvement in the traffic from Auckland to Rotorua. During the period named 1000 people took out tickets at Auckland for Rotorua, as compared with 750 during the same period of 1904. This is especially satisfactory when it is considered that Easter this year was three weeks later than in 1901.

Apart from the ordinary and holiday traffic at Easter time, the Department had also to cope with the race traffic to Ellerslie. On the first day the Depailment carried 2000 return passengers, on the second day 4000, and on the third day 1500, or 7500 in all. This represents a falliug away upon the returns for the same period of last year of 2000, which is no doubt due to the competition of the tramline to Remtiera.

On Saturday, the 22nd, the tramways carried 74,000 passengers, a, record for Laster Saturday; "while on Easter Monday the cars were patronised by 70,000 people. This represents an increase over the figures for Easter Saturday and Monday, 1904, of 10,500, the figures for those days being 63,200 and 65,300 respectively. 'I'll© figures given, it may he explained, represent the total number of people car-, ried, iirespective of amount of fare.