ROBOTS FOR AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 12 (Supplement)

ROBOTS FOR AUCKLAND.

TRAFFIC CONTROL BY LIGHTS.

Robot lights similar to those operating in Courtenay Place, Wellington, will probably be installed on several Auckland street intersections. Hie chief traffic inspector, Mr. G. R. Hogan, recently visited Wellington to observe the working of the automatic lights. Likely corners are the intersection of Queen Street and Customs Street, Queen Street and Wellcsley Street, and perhaps, at Grafton Bridge.

These period lights arc being used ;n manv parts of the world and once traffic reaches a certain density they have advantages over manual control. At the Customs Street intersection, traffic botween 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. averages well over 1000 vehicles an hour, and here certainly is sufficient density to make automatic control effective provided that horse-drawn vehicles are not too numerous. There was nr. outcry some time ago when it was proposed to prohibit horse vehicles from Queen Street, but for automatic control to be efficient the horse must be kept away. The light system allows no time for idling. Motorists are expected to fall into step with the strict regularity of the system and its whole tendency is to educate drivers to act swiftly in traffic. The. man who cannot control his brakes and gears in the press of traffic will not like the automatic device. No provision is made for the man who makes mistakes. Traffic is kept mobile and if one dawdles across an intersection one invites trouble when the right of way is given from another approach and a lino of vehicles is released. The London policeman is generally admitted to know his traffic duties pretty thoroughly, but even Piccadilly has been converted' to traffic lighthouses similar to those in Wellington. The three light system seems to be most used. It is jiist a year since the installations were made in Wellington. There are signal boxes facing each of the seven avenues of approach. Each carried red, green and amber lights. At first only the red and green colours were used for simplicity but now the amber lamp operates before the change to either green or red as a, warning to get ready for starting or stopping. The economic aspect is important to municipalities. It costs from £3OO to £4OO a year to staff a busy city point. The Wellington automatic lights cost about £2OO to install and 7s 6d a week for electricity is practically the only expense thereafter. The lights are conspicuous on the brightest day and they have the great advantage that they operate at night and keep some sort of regularity with traffic long after a traffic officer would be employed.

In Wellington the system was inaugurated by allowing half-minute intervals with the " go" anrl " stop" lights. The period of the lights may require many alterations after careful observations of the trend of traffic. Sometimes it is necessary to allow a long " go" period in one'direction during certain hours. In Melbourne the red light shows for 30 seconds, the amber for 5 seconds, and the green for 30 seconds. London, Coventry, Birmingham, Leeds, Wolverhampton. and Berlin are some of the cities which have adopted automatic lights. In Paris a warning bell rings when the amber light is on to indicate that drivers must be prepared for a change. The Ministry of Transport of Great Britain has "given its approval to this American innovation. The Ministry has recommended local bodies adopting the system to indicate the areas for the guidance of strangers by adopting a special disc sign for the approaches to the point. OIL RESOURCES. " The creat source of benzine for many years will continue to be petroleum, said Professor E. G. R. Ardagh, of the University of Toronto, in a lecture b& fore the Royal Canadian Institute in Montreal. " The report that the supply of petroleum is rapidly approaching exhaustion is not well founded. While it is true that the consumption of oil is increasing, production is keeping abreast of the demand, and producers have anticipated increases in consumption to such an extent that the oil industry has at times found itself with enormous stocks of oil on hand that were difficult to market satisfactorily.

"It is scarcely possible at this time to make any estimate of oil remaining undergiound. in view of the fact that every year we discover new pools of oil in new territories, and are able to sinkmuch deeper wells to-day than in tho past." In an official publication of the Standard Oil Company of America, a continued over-production of oil is predicted in U.S.A. It is stated that after talcing care of increased consumption, there will bo over-produced this year in the United States an average of 5,000.000 barrels per month. With crude oil in such liberal supply, refiners in all districts disregarded statistics of the amount of finished products they would be called upon to supply in their locality, and increased their returns to a greater extent than was justified by the gain in consumption. The result was that throughout tho first half of this year the primary problem of overproduction of crude oil was carried forward into the no less embarrassing problem of over-production of petrol. Consequently, there was accumulated in this period in U.S.A. 8,400,000 barrels of petrol (352,800,000 gallons). In tho firstsix months of the previous year the accumulation was 1,.500,000 barrels. Over the corresponding period of 1928 tho demand for petrol in the first six months of this year, including exports, showed an increase of 15.38 per cent., but in the samo time refinery runs increased 11.28 per cent., resulting in an increase in the total petrol supply of J9.03 per cent. RUSSIAN OARS. The £1,000,000 tractor plant at the mouth of the Volga in Southern Russia, which will be built by the Russian Govern:rcnt, is the beginning of a five-year industrial development plan, involving a sum that will exceed £20,000,000. Besides tho Stalingrad plant, which will have annual capacity of 40,000 tractors, the Government plans a motor-car factory capable of producing 100,000 units annually, and a motor truck plant with an annual production of 10,000 three-ton trucks, besides other factories of similar character. RUBBER FOR CAR CHASSIS. The ever-growing use of rubber in motor-car chassis is brought home by a bulletin recently issued by tho Rubber Growers' Association. At one time the tyre was practically tho only component made of rubber, but nowadays this material is employed in a shock-absorbing capacity for engine and gear-box mountings, radiator supports, bumpers, pneumatic upholstery, flexible couplings, and so forth. In a special compressed form it is of course, employed in tho Silentbloc bush used for spring oyes and similar ?urposes in a large number of 1930 models, his bush, incidentally, is unique in that there is no relativo movement between rub"ber and metal, the necessary play being permitted by the flexibility of tho rubber itself,. I