THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1928. LONDON TRANSPORT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20132, 18 December 1928, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1928. LONDON TRANSPORT.

Legislation to control and coordinate passenger transport in London is to be considered during the present session of Parliament. It is being promoted by the London County Council and the London General Omnibus Company, the two parties to be most affected by the arrangement. The bills to be introduced. it is stated, embody the re commendations made by the London Traffic Committee a year ago. That being so, the nature of the scheme is on rocord, and a study of it is instructive as showing how transport problems are duplicated in different parts of the world. The report was no emergency document, hastily constructed. Even when produced by the committee last year it was the result of 18 months' careful investigation. The case for action rests on three factors, the congestion of the streets, the financial, difficulties of many transport undertakings, and the complaints from many districts of inadequate services. To take the last point first, the Traffic Advisory Committee, after inquiries into the position in North London, East London, and Soiith-East London, found that in some parts general traffic facilities were inadequate. Existing needs could be met only by extension of the tubo railway system, but thero was little prospect of this until uneconomic competition had been eliminated. What the transport needs of London are can be gauged by a return showing that whereas the number of passengers carried in a year by public vehicles within a radius of 25 miles from Charing Cross was 25,000,000 in 1860, it was 3,252,000,000 in 1925, and was expected to be 4,000,000,000 in 1930. This is the problem with which the London transport authorities have to wrestle. The most difficult side of the situation to be faced is the financial. The report on which action is being taken is quite emphatic that tram way undertakings cannot be abolished. They are still absolutely essential to help move the travelling population at the hours of peak loading. Yet many of the tramway systems within the area covered are in deep water financially. The great and powerful London County Council was estimated to have lost £250,000 on its tramway undertaking in the financial year preceding that in which the report was issued. The Middlesex County Council had leased its tramway system, but was likely to be called on to take it back in 1930. These were extreme cases, but most of the tramway systems within the area were in difficulties. Yet, as already stated, it was found that they were essential in spite of the competing services which had made such inroads • into their finances. With regard to previous efforts made to meet the position, it was stated that the London Traffic Act, 1924, had entirely failed to solve the problem and that the mere restriction in the number of omnibuses allowed on the streets was not adequate. Therefore the scheme for unified management and control, with a pooling of finances, to which the forthcoming legislation proposes to give effect, was devised. It was pointed out a year ago that a precedent for this movement existed. In 1915 statutory authority was given the four underground railway groups and the London General Omnibus Company to pool their receipts and unify their management. Since then various privately-owned tramway undertakings have joined in with this merger. The Traffic Advisory Committee therefore drew up its scheme which provided for so complete an extension of the trafficorganisations in Greater London that they would be one in manage ment and in finance, though their ownership would not be transferred to any central body. The core of the scheme, as devised and now offered for execution, is that thero should be no change in the ownership of any of the undertakings coming into it, whether they belonged to private firms or public bodies. A common fund and a common management must be set up, to which all the traffic undertakings must be parties. Then the "overriding public authority," to which reference is made in the cable message, follows. It is not to own any transport undertaking, and members of it who represent such undertak ings must take no part in the proceedings when any concern in which they are interested is involved. Its functions are to be the investigation of complaints and disputes, the regulation of fares, the review of existing transport facilities and the determination what further develop ments should be undertaken. In the last two items lie the hope of ending wasteful competition. Cutting of rates to secure patronage will, .of course, be stopped. The discretion to determine what future developments shall' be will allow this authority to assure the underground railways against competition pi they

make the extensions desired to cater for backward districts. No estimate is giveu of the capital to be represented in the pool, but it goes without saying it will be enormous. This proposed system of control .is designed to last for 42 years without any variation except such as may be generally agreed upon by the parties. It is significant of the realisation that modern transport cannot bo conducted in haphazard fashion, . that this great scheme should be devised and accepted voluntarily, as it must have been, by the huge and varied interests con cerned in catering for the millions of Greater London. Free competi tion has obviously broken down there. Unified control, though not unified ownership, has been adopted as the way out of the maze. The progress of this scheme, pressed to a conclusion, will be an object lesson for the world as an attack on the problems of modern passenger transport,