TREMENDOUS SUCCESS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LII, Issue 17157, 6 October 1926, Page 7

TREMENDOUS SUCCESS

l MOTOR BUS TRANSPORT ; GOING TO INCREASE 1 j COUNCILLOR’S OBSERVATIONS | (Special to the Herald.' AUCKLAND, this day. “1 think we can take it that motor buses are filling a position from which they cannot be shifted, and that in New Zealand their field of operations is going to increase,” said Mr. .1. A. C. Allum, president of the Auckland Provincial Industrial Association, and a member of the Auckland City Council, who returned by the I'limaroa from an extended tour ot-England and the Continent. Mr. Allum said that in England buses were now serving districts that had never been catered for by railways, and would in all likelihood never have had trams. Small towns and rural districts in England were now enjoying this modern form of rapid transport, and the service was enabling people to move about- at a lower cost than was possible before. He found that it was possible to cover vast- areas of the countryside by simply transferring from one bus service to another. He and Airs. Allum had set out from bon don by motor bus with the idea of seeing how much of the county of Kent they would be able to visit in this way. By using five different bus services which made regular connections they found it possible, to reach any of the principal Kentish coastal resorts bv this means. In London people favored motor buses for reasons that did not obtain in Auckland. Where there was an enormous volume of traffic the privilege of boarding the bus at the kerb was appreciated. Air. Allum said that in Victoria and England be had noticed that the authorities were concerned as to how far regulations would tend to interfere with, and destroy private enterprise. While it was recognised that tramway assets, whether privately or municipally owned, must be preserved, they hesitated to impose conditions that would stifle competition. It- was found in England that buses did not stop at tramway termini, and thus simply act as feeders to ttie trams, but brought their passengers from the outer districts right into the city. It had to be realised, he said, that buses were a tremendous success in England, although it should not be taken from this that trams must go out ol action. Both forms of transport- bad their field of usefulness.