Flashback Friday: 70 years since 1951's bus crisis

70 years ago newspapers reported on a crisis that was the start of three or four decades of bus patronage falls and service cuts. 

This was the era when rights to run bus routes were allocated by government but there was no state subsidy. Bus routes had to earn their keep from their fare box revenue. 

1951 was very different from the more protected Melbourne bus scene of 2021, where, provided you've obtained or inherited a long term contract you can't really go wrong even if no one rides your buses. Today duplicative and poorly used bus routes that do not even stack up on social equity grounds routinely attract public subsidy for years without serious review or reform.  

Bus companies (which were numerous and small in those days) charged and collected their own fares. They could apply for fare increases but they were not always granted by the government that regulated fares. And if they were there was the risk that they could lose patronage to a cheaper operator running a nearby route. And, especially in older suburbs, routes were often both short and close together. 

The problems of 1951 were caused by two matters outside the bus industry's control.

Firstly there was the end of wartime petrol rationing in 1950. When that ended people could drive their cars further without restriction. Which they did. This contributed to the fall in public transport use off from its peak in about 1945. Public transport usage narrowed to become more housewives, schoolchildren and peak CBD commuters, although buses had some reprieve due to growth of suburbs beyond the tram tracks and away from stations. The non-conversion or closure of some trams also put more people onto buses, though the replacement routes were government rather than privately run. 

Secondly there was the Korean war, wool boom and the resultant high inflation (history of which is here). This increased costs for bus operators since wages were regulated and unionisation was high. With static or falling patronage they had to hike fares to break even, which risked further losses. Or, to stem losses, abandon their routes. Survivors generally did so by buying out weaker operators and running longer combined routes. This lessened the need to change (which was good) but frequencies and operating hours were often reduced (which was bad for passengers but reduced operating costs). 

That's the 'big picture' background. Here are some Trove articles, ordered by date, that discuss route by route details.

* 13 July 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244238441 & https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205340109 & https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244237896

Loss of East Malvern bus service and calls for extension.

* 27 July 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205340381
Self-help scheme to revive bus. (Note there have been other community-led schemes, most recently 
Wynbus in the City of Wyndham).

* 12 June 1954 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205386496
Chamber of Commerce to run Hughesdale bus.

* 10 September 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205336844
Bus companies threaten to abandon routes (some listed) if government does not grant fare rises

* 17 September 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244240774
Elsternwick - Point Ormond bus route to close.

* 23 October 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205328065
Account of a route being abandoned despite operator being granted a fare rise (the route concerned is a predecessor to today's 623).

* 23 October 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205328097
Up to 13 routes to cease. 

* 24 October 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247847349
Higher fares blamed for lower bus use and a shift to cycling. 

* 29 October 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247849282

Major bus routes in Northcote, Heidelberg & Watsonia would cease on 31 December

* 31 October 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205331751

MP advocates for Heidelberg buses.

* 7 November 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23090482

Entire bus network to be reorganised. Need to shift buses from stagnant established areas to growing outer areas.

* 31 December 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247840660

Reprieve for some buses including Kew - Mont Albert and Heidelberg area. 

* 6 February 1952 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/246044577
Mont Albert - Kew converted to school bus only (today the area has few regular routes but many school routes especially around Barkers Rd)

* 1 March 1952 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/246052811

Heidelberg - Ivanhoe route to stop (except for school children)

Western suburbs Tramways Board buses

* 9 February 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74982978

Criticism of Deer Park bus service due to its hourly frequency and lack of Sunday morning service. Train considered inadequate due to distance of station from settled area. 

* 20 December 1951 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74985632 

Tramways board start Sunday morning Deer Park service. Mention that weekday service will be every 30 minutes after a driver shortage is resolved. 

* 6 November 1952 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23213821

Frequent Tramways board buses to west. Peak as frequent as 3.5 minutes. 

* 7 November 1952 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74988607

Tramways Board start running Deer Park - City buses. Article says that buses will provide competition with rail service which was found wanting. A very high frequency was provided, including service every 5 min peaks, 7.5 min off-peak and 10 min night. This became the 216 bus until Brimbank area reforms. 

Summary of buses in 1955

Things seemed to have settled down for a while after these cuts. Although many more were to happen with a general redistribution of service from established to newer suburbs. However newer suburbs never got the operating hours and frequencies that older areas lost.  

This 1955 Government Gazette summaries buses as they were in 1955. 

https://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/images/1955/V/general/1.pdf

Earlier and later crises and successes

Zooming out a bit, 1951 wasn't the only year buses had problems maintaining existing service levels. The early 1930s saw reduced commuter usage as people lost their jobs during the Great Depression.  Others might have switched to walking or cycling to save having to pay a fare (our cities being more compact then with more small-scale industry nearer peoples homes).

A decade later we were in war. It's well-known that fuel rationing limited private travel. However public transport use was high and people were only encouraged to use it for necessary trips. Bus companies were required to trim their routes to lessen overlap, cut competition with the railways and reduce wasteful duplication.  

We've already covered the early 1950s. After these problems some bus companies did well as suburbanisation exploded and most new estates were beyond walking distance of trains. However rising car ownership led to buses role being reduced to specific markets including housewives, older people and those commuting to stations. Schoolchildren predominantly walked or cycled but they too became significant bus users later. 

Bus companies responded by reducing routes, merging routes (and with each other) and cutting service frequencies and operating hours, particularly at night and on weekends. This was only a short-term relief, with patronage falling so far that they could no longer make their services pay. This combined with wage rises led to a recurrence of 1951-type problems with governments this time stepping in to subsidise buses from the early 1970s. With subsidy came a degree of stability but also increased state control. This meant that bus companies, while still privately owned, ceased being genuinely 'free enterprise' businesses with  limited ability to change their product or pricing.

Dependence on state funding tied buses' fate to public finances. There were long periods in the 1970s and 1990s where buses simply did not expand to serve suburban growth areas. We remain with these 30 or 40 year service backlogs in areas like Knox, Chirnside Park and the Mornington Peninsula. There were also large state-imposed cuts, eg in 1990 and almost exactly 30 years ago in 1991 following a bus contracting bungle a couple of years prior. Again in 2021 timetables remain with the axe-marks of those early '90s cuts as visible now as the day they were made.  

The last 15 years saw a major revival in government interest in buses, with significant service upgrades under Meeting Our Transport Challenges launched by minister Batchelor. This was followed by accelerated network reform under minister Mulder, a stagnation under minister Allan (as infrastructure became all-important) followed by recent signs of a revival with minister Carroll's Victoria's Bus Plan. More post-1950s history in the Seven ages of Melbourne's Buses.