TYRE SITUATION VERY SERIOUS

Southland Times, Issue 24891, 3 November 1942, Page 3

TYRE SITUATION VERY SERIOUS

NEED FOR REDUCING ROAD SERVICES “The tyre situation is very serious and it is getting more serious. I had the latest figures from the Minister in Christchurch on Saturday morning,” said Mr S. V. Raines, South Island Transport Licensing , Authority, at a sitting in Invercargill yesterday. “Where a railway service of any kind is available,” Mr Raines added, “that must be used and the bus service cancelled.”

Mi- Raines said that when he visited Invercargill on July 1 last operators voluntarily agreed to make a reduction in services in order to conserve tyres. The object of the meeting that day was to put these reductions into effect legally and in accordance with the regulations so that they would be binding, and to see what further reductions could be made.

“The sole object of these reductions is to conserve tyre mileage,” Mr Raines said. “It is not a question of giving business to the railways, but of saving rubber and of employing services that do not use rubber. In this country that, for the most part, means using the railways, though in the northern part of the South Island shipping services are also being used. In the cases of some of the big bus services they have had an over-all reduction of 66 2-3 per cent. I do not like putting operators off the road or out of business. It is better to get an all round percentage reduction rather than put some operators out of business and leave others in.” DECISIONS UPHELD

This, Mr Raines added, was the policy adoped by the No. 2 Licensing Authority in Wellington. On the other hand the No. 1 Authority in Auckland had adopted the policy of cutting out some services altogether. Nineteen operators whose services had been cancelled had appealed and in every case the decision of the authority was upheld. The Commissioner of Transport had appealed in 18 or 19 cases against the decision of No. 2 Licensing Authority to leave skeleton bus services where alternative services by railway were available. On each case the decision of the authority was reversed, which meant that the bus services were entirely suspended. Reductions had got to be made in the interests of the operators themselves, for these reductions would enable operators to continue longer. “The position is so serious,” Mr Raines said, “that I would be justified in making an order that all operators must make a cut of 50 per cent, on the services they were running before December 1941, when a reduction in services was made because of the petrol situation.” “CUT TO BONE” “The bus proprietors have had meetings, but they do not seem to be able to arrive at any suggestions that are going to be helpful,” said Mr G. Hewton. “The bus services have already been reduced to such an extent that in the public interest it is difficult to see how the services can be further reduced. We are already down to the bone, and if further reductions are made it will mean cutting the bone. With the exception of suburban services, I do not think there is a bus service in Southland that is now running more than once daily, and quite candidly I cannot see how any further cuts can be made without cutting essential lines of communication.” Mr Raines: What is going to be the position when the stocks of tyres give out altogether? Mr Hewton: That is a position that has to be faced in any case.

Mr Hewton said there had been some criticism from bus operators because, whereas passenger services had been cut out, goods services had been allowed to remain. As an example, the bus service to Bluff had now ceased, but the goods service by road to Bluff remained. Then there were the suburban services. Operators were asking why some of these should not be eliminated when people at most had only a few blocks to walk to catch a tram. TYRE PROBLEM

Mr Raines said it was principally a question of tyres. Tyres of the large commercial vehicle size were in very short supply. This was the type of tyre used by passenger buses. They were not so concerned about vehicles that used a smaller type of tyre. However, goods services had been ‘drastically curtailed by the goods transport control committees. The goods service to Bluff was under the control of the goods committee for the district and it could no doubt be taken off altogether or drastically curtailed, but the point was that there were a number of carriers in Invercargill who had wide area licences which permitted them to run to Bluff. Therefore if the present operator of the Bluff goods service was put off the road these carriers could take his place the next day. As for the curtailment of suburban services, it had to be remembered that these served far more people than did the country services. “The passenger services have not been singled out in any way,” Mr Raines added. “Unfortunately, the passenger buses are among the vehicles which use the large commercial vehicle type of tyre and these are in very short supply. Many goods services have been cut down considerably. The carting of stock by road is practically a thing of the past. It is quite impossible to get equality of sacrifice. It may seem that one man is treated more harshly than another, but that is due to what may be called the fortunes of war, to circumstances that are peculiar to his particular case.”