A RISKY EXPERIMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 771, 18 September 1929, Page 8

A RISKY EXPERIMENT

SUBURBAN local bodies are naturally enthusiastic about the flat rate tramway fare now under the consideration of the Auckland Transport Board. Their enthusiasm is easily understood, for they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If the flat rate were adopted and proved to he a success, settlement in sub urban areas would be stimulated, and the living costs of those already there reduced; while even if the innovation were a failure, the residents would still have had the benefit of cheap fares during the period of trial. Unfortunately, these considerations do not interest the short-section traveller who, on a flat rate arrangement, would have to pay threepence for a one-section ride, where he pays only twopence now. The inevitable effect would he to drive numbers of short-section patrons off the cars, and the loss thus incurred could not possibly be balanced by added patronage, at sacrificial rates, over longer distances.' There is a glamour about travelling to the ends of the tramway system for a sum as low as threepence, blit the possibility of loss to the system should not be overlooked. If such an experiment ended as disastrously as many competent observers think it might, the hulk of the loss would fall upon the city ratepayers. The system adopted in Wellington has been cited as an example Auckland would do well to follow, but that is not a flat rate system in the sense advocated here. In Wellington it is possible to obtain books of tickets priced individually at a rate below that payable for a single ride over the full distance; but the passenger who journeys over a short distance may still do so at the exact fare ruling for that distance before the present concessions were introduced. Hence there is no risk that the Wellington service may sacrifice the one and two-section patrons who, as in Auckland, make up the bulk of the traffic. Even though it does not go as far as the proposal made here, the innovation in Wellington is reported not to have given the best results to the municipality, and if Wellington did not get its power at a cheap rate it would probably not be able to maintain it. Clearly, the local advocacy of such a radical experiment should be based on exact figures, and not on generalities. The costly extensions to which the Transport Board has lately committed itself are no doubt all based on returns under the existing scale of charges, and not ou any problematical figures. There is a certain allurement in cheap flat-rate fares, hut the hoard’s present duty it to conserve its financial position. Without assurances of absolute success it should he chary of experiments lust now.