THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10. 1926.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19969, 10 December 1926, Page 10

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10. 1926.

TRANSPORT DEVELOPMENT. The problem which the development of motor-bus transportation has created, iyul which has been a matter of concern for the past two years to the proprietors of older forms of passenger services in New Zealand, is far from peculiar to the Dominion. It is more or less common .to all countries. In the United States, it is not surprising to learn, • it has presented itself on a large scale, and the tendency seems to be to deal with it in a manner not dissimilar from the treatment of it in this country. The magnitude of the development of motor-bus services in the States is instructively illustrated in an. informative article in the latest monthly publication of the National Bank of Commerce in New York. Already, the scheduled mileage of common carrier buses exceeds that of the steam railroads. If to this be added the routes covered by non-common carriers, the total greatly surpasses that of steam and electric roads combined. This veritable network of services is the accomplishment of little more than five years’ time. At the beginning of 1926 approximately 70,000 motor buses were in use. Bus transportation first developed independently of, and in competition with, the electric and steam services. Between six and seven thousand bus companies are irt operation, as compared with the few hundreds of electric and steam railroads that are as yet employ, ing buses. The effect of the growth of motor-bus transportation, has been reflected strikingly in the passenger traffic of the steam railroads. Oh some railway systems the decline has amounted to a third of the former traffic. To some extent the railroad loss must be attributed to the increasing use of private automobiles in the United States, but to a large extent it must be due to direct competition on the part of motor buses. For example, it is pointed out that nearly 1200 miles of steam railroads in Massachusetts and Rhode Island are paralleled, as the Americans phrase it, by bus routes. In Connecticut bus routes parallel more than half of the thousand miles of railroads. Nearly 3000 miles, or over 40 per cent., of the steam railroad mileage of Indiana is paralleled by bus routes. This brings into competition with buses nearly every steam railroad in the State. In lowa 20 per cent, and in Michigan over 30 per cent, of the total railroad trackage is paralleled by bus routes. In West Virginia, Kentucky, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington from 60 to 90 per cent, of the aggregate mileage of bus routes either parallels steam railroads or competes indirectly by connecting the same terminals. Moreover, the electric roads, whose traffic is nearly all local or inter-urban, have felt severely the effect of automotive competition. As the public seems to exhibit a strong taste for riding in motor buses, the older rail companies in America are increasingly tending to utilise the new agency, and there has been a movement in the direction of effecting a co-ordina-tion of railway and bus facilities and the elimination of duplicating services. There are now, in fact, numerous instances where bus and electric lines are operated under the same management, this resulting in operating economies, increased traffic, and better service. But the need for regulation of the motor-bus transportation, where it is actively competing with railroads, is being recognised. A majority of the States are undertaking the regulation of bus services that are confined within their limits, and the Commerce Monthly considers there is little doubt that Federal regulation of Inter-State bus systems, which is recommended by the desirability of reducing the present often irresponsible cut-throat competition, is not far distant. Thus it will be seen that the development of motor-bus

transportation is producing in the United States reactions that correspond rather closely to those produced in New Zealand.