466 History of Inland Transport 



and local authorities who built them as though for eternity 

 are now faced by the rivalry of the motor-omnibus. 



Motor-omnibuses are still to a certain extent in the experi- 

 mental stage, since no one would suggest that they have yet 

 attained to the greatest possible perfection, while further im- 

 provements in them are constantly being announced. Yet 

 already their number has enormously increased, and they are 

 not only competing severely with the tramway but threaten- 

 ing eventually to supersede it. The motor-omnibus requires 

 no special track, no overhead wires, no power station and 

 sub-stations, and no costly widenings of streets and roads 

 or rebuilding of bridges. Consequently, the capital expendi- 

 ture involved in the provision of a large stock of motor- 

 omnibuses is far less, in proportion, than that entailed by 

 electric tramways providing an equivalent service. The motor- 

 omnibus, too, has greater freedom in a busy thoroughfare 

 and is thus quicker in its movements than the tramway car, 

 limited to a fixed track and much more liable to be detained 

 by blocks of traffic. The motor-bus, again, can readily be 

 transferred from one route to another where greater traffic 

 is likely to be found, whereas the tramway, once laid, must 

 remain where it is, whether the takings are satisfactory or not ; 

 while another material factor in the case of an electric tram- 

 way, namely, that owing to the cost of the standing equipment 

 (power house, etc.), a fifteen-minute service is, generally 

 speaking, the lowest economic limit, 1 does not arise in the 

 case of the motor-omnibus, which can be run according to the 

 actual requirements of traffic. 



Still greater attention is now being paid to the subject of 

 motor-omnibuses, inasmuch as the discouragement given to the 

 provision of electric tramways by commercial companies by 

 reason of the exactions levied as the price of assents or because 

 of the preference shown for municipal ownership has driven 

 private enterprise to seek alternative methods in supplying 

 facilities for street and road traffic with the prospect of a 

 reasonable return on the capital invested ; and one ideal in 

 these alternative methods naturally is, in the circumstances, 

 that they should involve a minimum of possible control by the 

 local authorities. If, in the result, private enterprise, thus 

 driven to adopt new expedients in locomotion, should so far 

 1 " Electricity in Locomotion," by A. G. Whyte, 1911. 



