RIVAL OF THE RAIL
ROAD PASSENGERS AND FREIGHT SERVICES.
(By Telegraph—Per Press Association.)
WELLINGTON, December 31
The steady decline in railway receipts recently announced is due principally to a factor which low prices for primary products will not explain away. Figures available from the Department or Transport show how substantial is the business conducted by road vehicled in competition against the rail. The private car, giving tremendously improved travel facilities, has developed the “travel habit,” but the gain lias not gone to the railways, because there is a car to every ten persons in New Zealand to-day, compared with one to every seventeen in the year 1925. - Motor trucks in 1925 were estimated to be giving a freight service equal to 48 million ton miles per; annum. Tile same enumeration to-day places the ton-mile factor at over 200 million miles. Service cars on the long-dis-tance routes are not serious competitors of tlie rail on a price basis, but their elasticity in • providing convenient transport has given them the advantage. Motor transport services on defined routes in the North Island employ 776 cars, while those of tile South Island utilise 308 cats,
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Hokitika Guardian, 3 January 1931, Page 2
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191RIVAL OF THE RAIL Hokitika Guardian, 3 January 1931, Page 2
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