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With the advent of the "Skipper" services in Ramsey, it is worth noting that this is not the first time small vehicles have operated on the island. The following articles are reprinted (with permission) from the trade press of the 1950's and relate to small vehicles in service with Douglas Corporation Transport.
How they are used in Douglas I.O.M. Arguments for and against the use of one man operated buses for town and inter-urban services have lasted almost as long as the general use of pneumatic tyres. Early issues of Bus and Coach abound in articles and correspondence on the subject. The success of the experiments with the 43-seater vehicles at Huddersfield has reawakened interest in the idea where routes and loadings are generally suitable, and several other municipalities are running large sized single deckers worked by one man, or are contemplating doing so. So often the differences in basic costs, despite the higher pay given to the driver, reduces a substantial loss to a reasonable one, or else enables running costs to be met. But there is another field in which one man buses can be successfully operated. This is where a small and relatively cheap vehicle can provide a service at frequent enough intervals to attract short distance riders even where the minimum fare would normally discourage rather than attract such traffic. No town can be a better example of this than Douglas, the largest town in the Isle of Man. Abnormally concentrated periods of peak traffic are experienced in Douglas. From Mid-July to the end of August the transport department carries up to eight times the number of daily passengers handled from October to April inclusive. The normal population is only 20,288 and would therefore seem unlikely to support an intensive, internal bus service if there was not the heavy holiday traffic to be met. Yet by the use of eight one man worked buses with 20 to 26 seats and a no standing rule, areas that are away from the main roads (places where loading would justify the use of double deckers) are served with up to ten minute headways throughout the entire year. To some extent the local terrain discourages walkers, for the town is built on the side of a steep hill that stretches out nearly two miles along Douglas Bay. With so many boarding houses and hotels too, the area covered by the town is much larger than an industrial locality with the same number of residents. But on the other hand most routes in Douglas have flat fares of 3d for adults and one and a half d for children. Unlimited use season tickets at £8 for twelve months (two-thirds this amount can be paid for a winter period contract only,) reduce the charge for regular users who outside the summer months form about 25% of the passengers carried. Two routes in particular are justified by the use of one man buses, those from the Victoria Pier to All Saints and from the Victoria Pier to Ballabrooie. These are common over much of the distance, so with a twenty-minute headway on each, most of the line on the route followed has a ten-minute frequency. At times, particularly around lunch-time loadings are heavy enough to justify larger vehicles, which are accordingly put on service, but over most of each day there is only enough traffic to take half of two-thirds of the seating capacity of the one-man buses. For both routes the return mileage is 2.8. The scheduled speed of 7.8 mph may seem unduly low, but it has to be considered against the indirect nature of the route followed, the sharpness of the turns (almost every one, too, is protected by a halt sign, a feature of junctions throughout Douglas), the sharp climb of one in seven at Prospect hill and the use of nearly every possible passenger stop. Bus stops are now about 250-300 yards apart on the average; at one time they were as close as 150 yards. Passenger journeys on these two routes are little affected by seasonal traffic, for a mainly residential area is served. They average some 12,000 a week in the off-peak period. The summer services do include some unscheduled " on demand" early morning journeys to meet boat passengers from the piers on Saturdays and Sundays. These however are more used by short-distance riders than by people going on points well along the route, and once a vehicle is empty it turns back to the piers. When the larger vehicles are brought into service on the All Saints and Ballabrooie routes, the one-man buses go onto special school runs serving communities where the demand is deemed enough to warrant a service but loadings are light. The greatest advantage beyond keeping costs within reach of revenue is that children being carried are under the driver's observation, and cannot alight until he opens the door. Comparatively small housing estates are adequately served by the small buses; the use of two man vehicles to these would be wholly uneconomic. They are also used extensively on relief work on the major services, for the normal headways are generally sufficient to ensure that any overflow is on the small side within the capacity of a 20-26 seater. During the summer, the one-man buses work extensively on the service to Douglas Head, which perforce has to follow a roundabout route unsuitable at present for double-deckers. Traffic is heavy at times and the demand rises and falls with unusual sharpness. Working on a flat fare of 4d, a one-man bus can do the journey as quickly as one of the few larger single-deckers worked by a driver and a conductor. On August bank holiday one man buses carried of the 33 loads brought down from the head between 4pm and 5.30 pm> if the use of double deckers had been possible it would have been likely that only half of those journeys would have been run. On the other hand the distance is such that had an infrequent service been provided many of the passengers would not have waited and the revenue would have been lost to the Corporation. During the winter, Sunday Morning services are poorly patronised, though the town council, (which has complete control of services within the borough boundary) desired that journeys be provided by working these by the one-man buses, the keen economic advantage of the size is emphasised. Because of the peculiar circumstances covering the use of Douglas buses- no license fees have to be paid, for example - costs are difficult to quote in a form, which can be made comparative with those of any other operator. It can be said, however that they save four and a half pence per mile in operating costs. Because the likelihood of fares being missed is so small, revenue is probably at its maximum. The flat fares do, of course speed up fare collection, which is usually done at the start of the journey and then at the first stop away from the main street. Later passengers pay as they enter There may be a problem when it comes to replacement, for six of the buses used are now of obsolete type, the Leyland cub, the other two are war-time Bedford's. It is interesting to speculate on the possibilities of a forthcoming type. However- the Perkins engined Guys soon to replace cubs London Transport's one-man operated routes. Eighty-four of these are on order for the fringes of the London Transport area, and although the bodies, seating 26 passengers, are being made by Eastern coach works, at present able to sell only to units owned by the British transport commission, they are of a pattern that is fairly standard. The present Douglas buses have lengthways seats over the rear wheels to provide a luggage-carrying space in the gangway. In the 21 years he has been at Douglas, Mr C.F. Wolsey, the general manager, has been a continuous propagandist for small one-man buses. There is no doubt that the type does give satisfactory results and where circumstances are suitable elsewhere the use of them might do much to meet a public demand for services where the normal type is too large or too uneconomic to operate. There is one thing that probably more than anything else prevents an extension of their use in the Douglas system- a surplus of available labour, rather than the customary shortage, at least for most of the year. For obvious reasons therefore the Corporation keeps its labour forces in all departments at he highest possible level.
First published in the Omnibus
Society Journal and reproduced in
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