TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1930, Page 8

TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

CO-ORDINATION OF ROAD AND 1 ( RAILWAY. I

The direction to be followed in efforts to co-ordinate road and rail transport were sketched by Mr Ashton Davies, of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, in a paper read before 'the Institute of Transport in. London. Coordination in practice, Mr Davies said, must lie largely in the revision of the existing arrangements in local'detail, and the whole of the workings would require to be reviewed from the new angle of co-operation. At the earliest opportunity the dead wood of both railway and road organisations must he pruned away. Any mileage run by one or other entirely in excess of traffic requirements, where the superfluity had been occasioned by competition, must go. Unprofitable mileage which was part of a development policy, would of course, not enter into this category. In the nature of things opportunities for economising in mileage would arise more frequently on the railways than on the roads. , Every railway officer, Mr Davies continued, was painfully aware of certain branch lines which originally provided at considerable cost to connect towns or villages with main lines, had virtually been deserted by passenger traffic in favour of the more frequent or dir-' eet services which the motor omnibuses could provide and by reason of the conveniences of the omnibus in affording almost door J to-door transit for jthe ishtorlt-distance passenger. Facilities for exchange of traffic between railway and road transport would he created. No longer would there be an object in discouraging passengers from continuing by road a journey begun by rail or vice versa, and through-book-ing of passengers and inter-availability of tickets might he expected to become a normal feature. Station courtyard accommodation of various kinds for passengers would in some eases be » valuable asset to the road undertakings allied with the railway companies, and where circumstances admitted central railway stations would tend to he rittt railway stations alone but real traffic centres from which journeys could be made by railway or by road, and changes affected from one to the other with the least difficulty. Travel would tend to be encouraged by the united facilities of.- the railway and road operators whose organisations would he' complementary.