[?]Ever-Never Bus

Service

From a Rabaul Correspondent I sore point of several years’ in timation in Rabaul, New Britain, he fact that in a town of its size out 4,500) no regular, reliable \ service exists.

WO men who have undertaken to provide such a service admit akly that the going has been up all the way—thanks partly to the t that there are more than 60 is in the town and partly to the h use made of residents’ private s. fhe native population on the other id has not yet been made aware what buses mean; they still line up the company’s office, shilling in id with the expressed desire to iy” a bus to some place they cy.

Operator Bob Clarke, who sold out the present company, New Britain s Co., some months ago, was for mths at his wits’ end as to how it to keep a half-dozen ailing licles on the road. As fast as he »aired one bus and despatched it jther one would break down.

Clarke lays most of the blame on :ive drivers who can be taught to ve well enough but not to “nurse” even sense an impending failure the machinery.

Rabaul’s guess is that Clarke was II pleased to be shed of the bus ponsibility.

About the time the tranfer to NB s Co. took place the Administra n, seeking to provide bus services outlying areas, advertised 10 enses for application—some for the ite Rabaul/Keravat, others for ibaul/Kokopo.

Two companies applied, NBBC d a new company, Highway Buses, vner of the new outfit is Mr. James nding, taxi proprietor, of Rabaul.

To each applicant company the )vt. awarded licenses —not to give ch exclusive rights over one route, it an equal share of licenses to ch.

Meanwhile the town of Rabaul, th its “buses” running on public hide licenses, has not yet been anted any kind of official route sense at all.

Trouble began when each com my, nervously eyeing the other, ared the possibility of economic ilure . . . then Bending did the

obvious thing and offered to buy out

Nbbc.

He came up with (on paper) an admirable 2-circle plan whereby Rabaul town would be served by a series of one-price buses running endlessly on Inner and Outer routes from dawn to 11 p.m.

He also had regular schedule services planned to link Rabaul with Keravat, Kokopo, Nodup and Nonga.

Bending had his fleet colours all worked out—yellow and orange— and he immediately set about giving

Gazelle Peninsula roads their first bus-stops: neatly painted signs atop steel poles set in concrete, Everything was set to go when Highway Motors took over the NBBC bus fleet on July 1.

But something happened, The deal apparently fell through at the 11th hour, Residents, with one eye on Bending, wait to see what happens next.

No matter what happens, the bus services could scarcely be worse than they are today.