774 REPORT— 1903. 



traffic. Nottingham, for instance, has taken up the matter of regulating the heavy 

 traffic. It is believed that the present paper may he of use to those dealing 

 with traffic matters. 



In ideal conditions of traffic the lines of vehicles are all parallel to the kerb, 

 and under favourable conditions, with vehicles of approximately the same speed, 

 the streets have an enormously increased capacity. The extent of this is shown 

 by a table in which the ordinary London omnibus is taken as a typical vehicle. 

 The table shows the number of passengers that can be carried by fully loaded 

 omnibuses past a given point per hour at various speeds and with various intervals 

 between the omnibuses. This table is prepared from the following formulae : — 



Where V is the speed of the omnibuses in miles per hour. 

 D the interval between the omnibuses in feet. 

 S the time-interval in seconds. 

 N the number of passengers. 



Then 

 and 



N = 137,280 V/D 

 S = D/V. 'esi 



A very useful regulation would be one dealing with stopping vehicles, defining 

 in certain thoroughfares the time which vehicles may be allowed to stop. It is 

 suggested that a great many goods which are required for the regular supply of a 

 neighbourhood may be delivered between certain hours, other than those when 

 traffic is usually most congested. 



Great relief would be given to traffic by the removal of stopping vehicles 

 altogether from the streets. This could be effijcted by some moditicatiou of the 

 court and porte-cochere system so largely used in continental cities. In this 

 case many offices or places of business could open into one court into which visiting 

 vehicles would draw out of the public thoroughfare. 



A much larger proportion of the message and business visiting of our large 

 towns could be carried on bicycles (which is probably the vehicle most economical 

 of space of those which use the roadway) if focilities could be given for storing 

 them near the places of business. This could be arranged in the proposed 

 courts. Motor vehicles also could be stored in sub-baseaienls by the use of hfts, 

 and in this way a considerable proportion of the vehicles bringing passengers 

 into the business quarter in the morning could be stored there all day and thus 

 avoid the necessity of a daily double empty journey. 



Relief can also be given to traffic by regulations as to returning empty 

 carriages. These, in many cases, need not return by the most direct and busiest 

 routes. 



The author points out that one great cause of congestion is due to cross traffic 

 carried on the same level. Sir John Wolfe Barry has suggested bridging our main 

 thoroughfares and carrying cross traffic over or under them. The successful 

 widening experiment at Hyde Park Corner has shown, however, that if consider- 

 able widening is carried out at crossings — in fact, if something like Eegent and 

 Oxford Circus were introduced at each important crossing — great relief would be 

 given to traffic. 



The widening of both the main street and the cross street for a certain distance 

 on each side of the crossing is probably the most economical and efficient way of 

 increasing the capacity of a street for any given expenditure of money. 



Next comes the speed question. Most of the attempts to deal with modern 

 traffic have been unsuccessful in decreasing the time required to get from one part 

 of the town to another. Electric tramways, from which much was hoped, 

 practically do not exceed the old omnibus speed of seven miles an hour. A good 

 deal is to be hoped from automobiles, especially electric automobiles. These 

 vehicles can be run through traffic at 50 per cent, greater speed than horse-drawn 

 vehicles. It is to be noticed that speed is desirable as for a given amount of 

 traffic the number of vehicles required to carry it is inversely proportional to the 



