Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-11-23 | Page 48 | Motor Bus Operation has Problems Requiring Study

Motor Bus Operation Has Problems Requiring Study In practically every city of any sire in ' the United States there Is a bus line In operation, or such a line is contemplated. The successful operation of passenger buses means considerably more than the purchase of a. truck, fitting a passenger body and driving up and down the street. If you think that is all there Is to it, then you will operate a few months and then go out of business. The writer has talked with dozens of bus operators in different cities and has found that the majority earn money, but only because they have Btudied the bus problem and worked It out satisfactorily. The very first consideration is whether the town or city will permit of profitable bus operation. The laws must be taken into consideration and if these do not hamDer the scheme then the routes must be gone into. If there is a five mile or six mile route which the local traction company uses and charges a nickel on, then you can't compete at a nickel. You must find routes, suitable routes, over which you can run your buses at a lower cost than the traction company, or at the same cost, and give faster and more frequent service. These routes muot be considered from a number of dirterent angles. The road must be good, for if it is not you won't get passengers to ride more than once. The route must go through such territory that you can depend de-pend upon many short hauls. This will be especially true if there is no car line on the same route. Short Hauls Pay. Bear in mind that the longer th6 route the more short hauls you have to make to show a profit, for there is no money in taking a load of rassengers four miles at five cents each. Study the population of the territory through which the buses will run. Find out how many people there are in it approximately, and how-many how-many use the streetcars. You can do this by having a watcher count the number num-ber of people that board the streetcars at specified corners during certain hours of the day. You can get some idea of the business, you will do at these hours. You must be prepared at these hours, because it is then hat you run loaded, and when you run loaded you make money. It will pay one to go into a thorough study of bus routes or possible routes, and then before the line is started in operation advertise throughout the territory terri-tory that you are going to serve. Handbills Hand-bills will do; placards in the local stores are good. Newspaper advertising is excellent. ex-cellent. You can .figure the number of buses you will need by studying the territory. If all the people leave their homes between be-tween 7 and S a. m , you must be prepared pre-pared to meet them at yiat time, therefore there-fore you will need more than one bus. If you run one bus, let us say, and you can fill that four times between 7 and S a. m.. counting the number of persons in a given number of streets, then you can limit your territory. This usually is discovered dis-covered a week after you start; that is. you. soon learn that it is Just as easy to fill up In half the distance traveled. The object, however, should be to eerie the I people on the route. Therefore, you will : have to study the capacity problem seriously. seri-ously. ... Cheap Vehicle Expensive. Next comes the truclt, its equipment and body, and tiie driver. Don t buy a cheap truck that has no record as a good bus. Y'ou are investing in a vehicle of ! transportation, and that means that you are Investing in time. The cheap truck never pays keep away from it. Spend as much additional money as you can afford af-ford on comfort equipment pneumatic tires, good Interior lighting, comfortable seats. In planning the body or in purchasing pur-chasing one. get enough head room so ordinary people can stand up comfortably. comfort-ably. Half of a loaded truck is taken up with standing passengers It doesn't pay to carry only the seated ones. Make those who startd as comfortable as possible. pos-sible. If you are to operate over a route that has some steep grades be sure that the gear ratios of the truck are such as to make the grades easily. Run on regular schedule, whether you have passengers or not.- If you do not maintain a regular schedule people will i get dissatisfied because of the unreliability unreliabil-ity of the service and they will use the streetcars. Have schedule cards printed and leave them in a rack at the entrance of the bus. Try to live up to the schedule. sched-ule. If you do. then you can afford to issue coupon books good for twenty rides. Y'ou can charge five cents straight, or if you wish to start an innovation, issue weekly cards good for twelve rides at 50 cents, providing the tickets are used, each day. - J0. you can't live up to your running schedule don't expect to make a success'of six-day fifty-cent books. One bus operator is making a lot of money on the book system. He operates four buses and the bus is always on time. Pay Drivers Well. If you have to hire ;i driver, pay him well. Give him a certain percentage of the profita of the gross receipts, and it you don't do that or use a bonus of some kind then install a pay-as-you-leavc box and allow the driver to make change only. Half the success often lies with the driver. Your charge per passenger should be based upon two things, the competition of the traction company and the length of haul. You cannot afford to charge only five cents for anything over three miles. You must get more or avoid running- so far. In some, cases you can charge ten, providing your running time is considerably better than the streetcar. You should advertise that the bus meets certain trains or passes certain intersecting intersect-ing points at a certain time. You ' can tell the approximate time it' takes to get from one part of town to another so that people will use the bus at night for theaters. Run your buses all night, if necessary, hut certainly be sure to take care of- theater crowds. Put a sign on the tuns that it may be had for special occasions, as on Sundays and holidays.