Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

What Has Been Done in Hungary

What Has Been Done in Hungary.

Year. Passengers Carried. Receipts in Austrian Florins.
1888 Last year of the old system 9,056,500 14,112,000
1889 7 months of old, and 5 months of new system 13,054,600 15,021,500
1890 First whole year of new system 21,635,600 16,937,000
1891 New system 25,781,400 18,591,800
1892 New system 28,623,700 19,684,900
1896 New system 34,806,800 24,293,243
1897 New system 35,245,900 26,951,677

From the above figures it will be seen that during the nine years the Zone System has been at work in Hungary, the increase of traffic, as also the increase of revenue, has been great and continuous. The increase in passenger traffic has been 282.2 per cent., and the increase in passenger revenue 91 per cent.

This result has been brought about by reducing fares to the same extent that I proposed here, namely, on the average, to about one-fifth of the present charge, and I have always maintained that no less reduction would give a profitable return.

One of the most important results obtained in Hungary is the great extension in the average distance travelled by each passenger, which is from 71 to 130 kilometres, or over 83 per cent. It is easy to see what an influence this must have, not only on the railway revenue, but on other items of revenue, trade, commerce, and social conditions generally. My finance is based on the assumption that the average page 12 distance travelled will be not less than 15 miles, and the average fare not less than one shilling. It is obvious that, no matter what may be the system, the average fare paid must depend on the average distance travelled.

When Mr. Fife's table was prepared for the use of the Parliamentary Committee of 1886, the average travelling in New Zealand was 13 miles, and that table proves that we should not require any extension in order to secure the shilling average; but should we secure the same extension as in Hungary, and considering the difference in the habits of the people, we ought to secure a greater, it would mean 24 miles instead of the 15 calculated on.

What then would be the average fare? T say 1s. 8d. If that were so, the result would be remarkable, for our average fare last year, 1896-1897, was only 1s. 8½d. Thus we should secure practically the same passenger revenue, without carrying any additional fares. I expect that under the Stage System we should get five fares where now we get one. In Hungary they have now four where formerly they had one. If we only had the same, then this would be the result. Last year our "ordinary" passenger revenue was £378.684. Four times this amount is, £1,514,736. the figures are startling, but really do not seem impossible of attainment.

The Zone System was ridiculed by men who claimed to know, yet it has been a great success in Hungary, and still greater in Russia. There in its first year they secured £3,015,781 more than their railway experts calculated on, and this was from only the thinly-populated districts of that sparsely populated empire. Another remarkable development in Hungary has been the great increase in the best paying branches of passenger traffic, that is, in the first and second class and express travelling, in the United Kingdom the increase is solely in third class travelling, but under the Zone System in Hungary it is the reverse.

It was asserted by our railway men and others that the first success of the Zone System was merely due to its novelty, and that the effect would soon wear off, but the prosperity has been continuous for now over nine years, which proves that it is no mere spurt. The great general prosperity of Hungary is well known, and it is certain that the prosperity is largely connected with the alteration of its railway system.