POST OFFICE CARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1937, Page 6

POST OFFICE CARS

A BIG ORGANISATION

The New Zealand Post Office'is not only the largest motor-vehicle owner in the Dominion, but is also the biggest user of privately-owned motors, for it has 1500 road contracts for the carriage of mails. The Department's fleet numbers 700 vehicles, and it also uses 700 bicycles for the delivery of correspondence and telegrams and for inspectional duties.

The maintenance of the departmental motor fleet involves much organisation and a very complete system of safeguards against breakdown. There must be no weaklings in the fleet, because the Post Office is always working on a time factor, involving hundreds of. thousands of customers. Maintenance and depreciation, therefore, appear as important items in the organisation. The Post Office, makes a road test of its motor vehicles every six months, and this inspection is only part of the system. There are fourteen well-equipped Post Office workshops distributed throughout the Dominion where motor repairs can be done, and-some of these shops are able to deal with the heaviest jobs.

All motorists are interested in the life of a vehicle, and although it can be demonstrated that, with adequate renewals, a motor may give service indefinitely, there comes a period when repairs are too costly for any service conducted on business lines. The Post Office depreciation system is based on milage, and so corresponds with actual service. However, .as some of its vehicles are operated intermittently with a good deal of standing time, a time factor is added to the milage record under such conditions.

Replacements and the requirements of a rapidly-growing business involve additions to the Post Office motor fleet of about 100 vehicles each year. The very complete departmental records show that modern motor vehicles are much more dependable than those of, say, ten years ago. They are better capable of giving certain service and are easier to drive. The' running cost? have shown steady reductions of recent years, the main factors in this saving being engine reliability, improvements in tyres, notable improvements in road surfaces, and a- system of regular inspection which usually enables faults to be discovered before they develop into breakages involving expensive repairs.