PEAK PERIOD TRAM PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 28, 28 October 1942, Page 2

PEAK PERIOD TRAM PROBLEM

American Shopper’s Pass

For some years past the tramway authorities iu Wellington have been urging people, particularly housewives, to’ do their shopping at a tiiine which permits them to return home (before the peak loading periods of the day. This overloading of tramcars and buses at peak periods is the bane of almost every tramway management iu modern cities, for the reason that no system can place a sufficient number of cars on the tracks at cen tain times of the day to carry everyone who wishes to use them. Mr. M. Cable, formerly general manager of the Wellington tramways department, has received data from his friend and colleague, Mr. Walter Jackson, transport consultant, of Mt. Vernon, New York, U.S.A., enclosing samples of a new form of ticket that is being issued to shoppers in order to induce them to sheer off the peak period, and get home betimes. In Rochester, for example, the Transit Corporation, issued a 15 cent ticket which enables shoppers of either sex to use the cars as much as they please between the hours of 1.30 p.m. and 4.30 p.m., after which latter time the ticket is invalid. Fifteen cents sounds a lot to pay for a tram ride in Wellington, but in a large city, where there are many main avenues of trade and shopping is a more complex business than it may be here, a shopper has to dodge over an extensive area to secure such articles of food and wearing apparel as are required, and this transfer ticket (good over both the city’s trams and buses) enables the holder to cover an extensive field. It is suggested that probably some means could be devised for adopting the principle of a shopper’s ticket in Wellington in order to relieve the tramcars between 4.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. One slogan on this ticket runs "Use shopper’s pass and avoid parking worries.” In the same progressive city of Rochester there is another innovation. This is the oue-dollar weekly pass, which enables holders to ride as often as they like over the system between certain dates. The date on which the ticket ceases to be valid is set out in the largest, typo on the ticket. This ticket is specially popular with city, commercial travellers, house and estate agents, and canvassers, as they can travel as much as they please over the metropolitan area for a mere dollar a week. Another catch-line on the ticket reads, “Quiet, please. Defence workers are sleeping during the day.” This is accompanied by the sketch of a sleeping man.