BUSES CUT DOWN TRAMWAY PROFITS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17854, 24 May 1926, Page 10

BUSES CUT DOWN TRAMWAY PROFITS.

TAKAPUNA SHOWS A BIG DEFICIT.

(Special to the “ Star.”)* AUCKLAND, May 23. The competition of motor-buses is given by the Takapuna Tramway and Ferry Company as the sole reason for its deficit in the twelve months ended March 31. The profit and loss account shows a debit of £1999 7s 3d, and to this is added depreciation amounting to £2640 19s lid, making a total of £4640 7s 2d. After reciting reasons for abandoning the scheme to electrify the trams, the report proceeds to explain why the decision to electrify has been re-affimed as follows: “Now. however, the motorbus regulations have been issued, the company is advised that where adequate facilities for transport exist the licensing authorities are bound to refuse licenses to competing motor omnibuses. Your directors have, therefore, decided that if the Takapuna Borough Council (as. in their opinion, it is bound to do) refuses licenses for the Devonport service, the company will, subject to finance, immediately proceed to electrify the service. To do this shareholders must be prepared to subscribe largely to a Ti per cent debenture issue which is to be made to provide the necessary capital. “It is necessary that the city and ■u bur ban residents should recognise that, while it is always pleasant to have two strings to one's bow, motorbuses and electric cars running on the same route or catering for the same public are mutually destructive and cannot exist side by side. It does not take much consideration to appreciate the fact that the conception of tramwav undertakings, with their very large capital outlay, was originally bas ed on the assumption that they would handle the whole of the traffic offering. a plant which, under penalty, <■< oound to take the buraen of the peak traffic, which other systems will not attempt and cannot hope to cope with, is to 1 e fully patronised at other times, it simply has no justification for its existence Electrification must be undertaken by your directors in the spirit that, being assured of the whole traffic. we must, to the utmost of our power, give the public the best possible service, realising tliat the good--wdll of the public is absolutely essential to the working of a transport system. The alternative to electric traction is to put on a number of motorbuses and cut steam traction to the bare minimum In the meantime, the substitution of motor-buses for steam trams on light trips has largely reduc-

ed the losses: which were being incurrad"

Last year's report showed a profit of £579. which, however, did not permit of the payment of a dividend fo* - the half-year -ended March 31. On that occasion it was mentioned that the infantile paralysis epidemic had resulted in a loss of revenue amounting to £4OOO.