TRAMWAY FARES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 271, 12 August 1919, Page 6

TRAMWAY FARES

An increase in tramwav fares is not likely to be popular, but in the facts and figures available the increase which came into force yesterday on the city tramways is necessary and justified. As a municipal trading enterprise the tramways must earn working expenses and capital charges—the only alternative would be to ask one section of the city population to pay i. l ;. part for the tramway travelling of another section—and the authorities concerned seem to have gone quite as far as caution warranted in allowing expenditure to overtake revenue, A temporary excess of expenditure over revenue in an abnormal period might have been disregarded, but tho actual position disclosed is that expenditure per car mile has been gradually encroaching on the corresponding revenue ever since the beginning of tho financial year 191516. _At that time there was ■ a working balance to the good of something over 2kl. per car mile. With the. position set out on a graph it.is seen that twelve months later this balance had been re-' duced to Id. per car mile. During the next twelve months, although expenditure continued to increase, it was compensated by an approximately equal increase in revenue, but from this point (the j ginning of 191V-18) onwards revenue and expenditure rapidly converged, | and at the moment, with the effect of the increase still to bo felt, expenditure per car mile substantially exceeds revenue. Expenditure has not reached its present level as the result of any sudden or phenomenal movement, but in a long and sustained rise over a period of yea'rs. Since there is no question of reducing wages, and prices for materials show no tendency to drop, working expenses are not likely to fall at any time in the near future. Tho ratio in whicft fares have been increased .seems. to give little ground for criticism. . The increase is relatively heaviest in the case of singlesection rides and lightest in the case of a journey of maximum length. . This arrangement shows a proper consideration for the dweller on. the outskirts of •the city, but it will be the more easily defended since the increase in the case of siiiglc-section rides is only really heavy where passengers elect to pay in cash. Where tickets are bought, tho increase is only twenty-five per cent, (as against 100 per cent, in cash). Incidentally the incentive given to pay by ticket, instead of in cash ought to materially simplify the collection of fares and make to some extent for economy.