5. Gaillardit’s Steam Carriage--1894.

(Courtesy of the _Scientific American_.)] =Business Passenger Traffic.=--All machines that haul passengers for hire, that are used as a means of performing, promoting, or extending business relations, while so used, may be rightly considered business machines and the traffic business traffic. The physician who finds that he can quadruple the number of his daily calls; the traveling salesman who can double the territory covered and do it much more efficiently; the business or professional man, of whatever kind, who uses his automobile in going from one place to another in the performance of his duties; the farmer who comes to town to get his mail and information relative to markets or otherwise to assist him with his farm industry; and the multifold other uses which are for the advantage of financial or industrial enterprise may constitute a legitimate business passenger traffic. The transportation, however, by taxi-cab, jitney or bus is considered by many persons to be the type that should be classified under the term business passenger traffic. Jitney and taxi-cab traffic are of vast importance in the cities and are of real economic use in furnishing a rapid means of transit from point to point. The jitney is usually a privately owned vehicle not especially constructed for the business, which plies with more or less regularity over a route that may or may not be set out in the owner’s license. In early days the price of a ride was a “nickel” or “jitney” hence the name. Taxi-cabs are regularly licensed automobiles that carry passengers for hire, usually making the charge dependent more or less upon the distance traveled, which is registered by a taximeter. For example, the charge may be 25 cents plus 15 cents per mile or fraction thereof. This would make the charge for distances less than 1 mile, 40 cents; from 1 mile to 2 miles, 55 cents; from 2 to 3 miles, 70 cents; and so on. The driver usually turns the taximeter up to the fixed charge plus 1 mile, if fractions are counted as full miles, when the passenger enters, and the instrument adds on as the cab travels. Of course the taximeter may be made to register every quarter, every fifth, or every tenth of a mile, or even continuously. A special waiting charge is made if the cab is held by the passenger. Taxicabs are variable in form, from “flivvers” to limousines. Many of the larger cities are supplied with cabs owned in quantity by substantial companies which put on a line of cars usually all alike and painted with some striking feature or color. The larger ones are limousines seating five or seven passengers in the tonneau and one on the seat with the driver. Some of these cars are almost luxuriously fitted with fine cushions and special lighting. They have speaking tubes or electrical devices to signal the driver. The drivers for the large companies wear the livery of the company. Taxis, as may be inferred, have no established routes, but go wherever the passenger may desire. The motor-bus is well established both in city and cross-country traffic. As at first made motor-buses consisted of special bodies with seats placed upon freight truck chassis. This did not prove altogether satisfactory because of their excessive weight, too much of which is “unsprung.” They also have a high center of gravity, high floors, long turning radius and rather rigid suspension. A bus, to be efficient, durable and comfortable, should be especially designed. There should be lightness and strength; small unsprung weight; a low center of gravity; a flexible control; special transmission; wide treads; ample wheel base; short turning radius; low step entrance and exit; low top clearance; curb receipt and delivery of passengers; ample brake capacity; and high lowgear efficiency.[167] Pneumatic tires on account of their resiliency make the bus much more comfortable for the passengers by absorbing shocks, and for the same reason they also increase the life of the car and make it possible to travel faster. Cushion tires are next in order of merit and are an effort to combine the durability of the solid tire with the easy riding qualities of the pneumatic. Tests made by the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads show that the cushion or semi-solid tires stand between the solid and the pneumatic as regards riding comfort. With many bus operators a combination equipment is being used--pneumatics are used on the front to protect the engine and gasoline tank from vibration and cushion tires on the rear where the hardest wear comes. [Illustration: A MODERN RURAL PASSENGER BUS] [Illustration: © _Underwood and Underwood_ A NEW YORK CITY “STEPLESS BUS” It Has an Emergency Door, with Wire Window Guards, and will Seat 30 Persons.] Buses are made both single and double deck. The latter are in demand where traffic is large and also where sight-seeing is an important item, the upper deck being usually open to the weather. The fare charged by the bus is either the same or in many cases a little higher than that by the trolley car, but the bus has the advantage in that it can travel over streets where the trolley is not allowed, can usually make better time, and can load and unload at the curb, thus avoiding danger from passing vehicles, a matter of no little importance to timid passengers. The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. Since about every tenth person owns a machine which can accommodate from two to seven passengers, one can readily see the importance of this item to the traction companies. The result has been a falling off in passenger fares, which the companies have endeavored to offset by increasing rates, and this in turn has only accentuated the trouble by driving more men to automobiles. The only way the street car can hope to compete with the motor car is by keeping its rates low and hauling large numbers of passengers. The handiness of the automobile, going at the instant wanted, avoiding the usual walk of two or three blocks to and from a car line at the beginning and the end of the journey, the consequent saving in time, coupled with the exhilarating effect of riding rapidly through the open air furnishes a great handicap which the traction companies will have difficulty in overcoming. About the only things the street car has in its favor are cheapness and dependability. It can no doubt be shown that it is cheaper to patronize the trolley than to own and operate the average car. The street car will go in rainy or snowy weather when motor cars must be laid up. But the average American does not count cost; he thinks more of his own comfort and doing as his neighbors do, i.e., being in style. It may become necessary, as stated in another chapter, for the public to take over the street-car lines, run them at as low rates as possible for the accommodation of those who cannot afford motor cars, since their work is an absolute necessity to the community, and charge any deficit to the taxpayers. There seems to be another feasible and legitimate use for the motor bus which may help the street car companies as well. That is extensions by means of buses at the ends of the car lines or into territory not well served by them. The bus might collect passengers from an outlying district and bring them to the car line where the trolley can take them on to the heart of the city. Thus motor buses will become feeders rather than competitors of the regularly established traction lines. The car companies should attempt to take advantage of this sort of thing, using either the trackless trolley or gasoline motor, as may be thought the more suitable for the situation in hand. Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. Their usefulness seems to lie in suburban traffic or as feeders to railroads. Such buses are also largely used as carriers of children to and from consolidated schools. The little red school house, wherein began the educational training of so many of our great men, of which silver tongues have orated, whose virtues have been painted in poetry, and praises commemorated in song, cannot stand against the superior advantages of the consolidated graded school brought near to the pupils by the advent of the automobile. Since each consolidated school with about five teachers replaces eight to ten ungraded schools, and since it is easier and cheaper to maintain and heat one consolidated school than eight ungraded schools, the advantage is economical as well as educational. Another place where the motor bus seems extremely well adapted is in the transfer of travelers from one railroad terminal to another. Railroads contract with transfer companies to do this and a coupon, a portion of the traveler’s ticket, is detached by the bus-man when the transfer is made. To one who is not used to the city this is a great convenience. In the city of Chicago, through which many long-distance tourists pass and through which no or at least few railroads extend in both directions, hundreds of such transfers take place daily. Passengers and baggage are thus taken care of on a through ticket with despatch and little inconvenience. =Pleasure Passenger Traffic.=--Vast and important as may have become the business passenger motor traffic, purely pleasure travel by automobile probably exceeds it. Of the more than ten million motor cars licensed in the United States perhaps 80 per cent of them were purchased not for their use in the business of the owner, although that might have been the final excuse that consummated the deal, but for the pleasure the purchaser and his family would get from owning a car. The great car industry which has sprung up like a mushroom during the past quarter century may thank the people’s desire for personal pleasure for its tremendous prosperity. The movie picture industry is another instance of the same character; likewise the newest epidemic to attack the people--radio. It is not claimed that these have no economical uses. But the business and economical uses have followed rather than preceded the pleasurable uses. There are many who think the automobile fad, like the bicycle fad, will eventually wear out and the whole automobile question settle down to a purely business basis. Such a thing is not likely to occur, however. The automobile is a much more perfect pleasure machine than is the bicycle. The knack of riding a bicycle has to be learned and requires considerable muscular exertion. It is not the thing a tired person eagerly turns to for recreation and rest. Anyone without exertion and with complete relaxation may ride in an automobile. Soon there comes a desire to drive the machine; then complete relaxation while no longer possible is replaced by a mental effort which drives out all thought of business, all care and anxiety regarding the ordinary affairs of life. The mind for the driver’s own safety must be confined to his effort to manage the machine and make it go where and as he wants it to go--change of work is often better than complete relaxation, although the latter has its beneficial effects in the treatment of diseases. For these reasons then, if for no other, the use of automobiles to cater to the pleasure propensities of the people will continue. There are very few persons who do not enjoy an automobile ride--they are only the timid who fear accident. The recreational and pathological benefits to be derived cannot be overestimated. During the recent war the Government gave much attention to the entertainment of the soldiers and endeavored in many, many ways to divert their minds from the serious side of war. So with the people generally. They are much better off for pleasurable diversions and the automobile furnishes these in a very high degree. [Illustration: THE EVOLUTION OF THE GASOLINE MOTOR CAR