TRAMS AND BUSES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 112, 9 February 1928, Page 11

TRAMS AND BUSES

COMPETITION RUINOUS TO RAIL SYSTEMS

CO-OPERATION ADVISED

Sydney, February 8.

Mr. R. W. Gunter, consulting engineer to the London General Omnibus Company, who has arrived from Auckland in the Marama, says that the buses will eventually supersede trams. All fixed rail systems in the world are faced with ruination by bus competition, and, unless some form of co-op-eration and co-ordination is reached, tramway finances will become chaotic. Mr. Gunter frankly admitted the impracticability of scrapping the entire tramway service, but with buses inevitably dominating the roads, ■ something had to be done. His suggestion to the New Zealand Government was, he thought, the only one, namely, that for the present the tramway system must be regarded as the backbone of the transport system, with buses operating as feeders to the general system, and the establishment of a sinking fund, so that eventually the trams could be replaced with standardised buses. For this, some form of central control was essential. Dual control was fatal. Another suggestion was a penal fare, where buses were obliged to charge a minimum fare in excess of the tram fare, and hand a portion of it over to the trams. It was found that this penal fare did not deter buses from operating.