PASSENGER TRAFFIC.
The study of passenger traffic is less satisfactory than that of freight traffic. Fewer lines furnish a history of their passenger rates, and ordinarily those histories cover shorter periods. The study is therefore confined to narrower limits and its lessons are necessarily less conclusive.
Passenger Rates per Mile.
Passenger Rates.—Below is given a chart interpreting the available data of six representative lines. The first lesson impressed is that no such reduction marks the history of passenger rates as is shown in freight rates, although the general trend of the chart-lines is plainly downward. The line indicating the average rate for all the roads in the country (marked U. S. in the chart) shows a reduction of over one-fourth of a cent per passenger per mile since 1882.
Certain features of this chart attract special attention. The reduction of rates by the Pennsylvania, and the New York Central & Hudson River roads in 1876, and that by the same roads in 1885, are suggestive. Equally noticeable are the reductions of the Illinois Central in 1871, 1872, 1880, and 1888.
This chart would seem to indicate that competition has not operated as sharply on passenger as on freight traffic.
Passenger Travel.—The average distance that passengers ride is not as important an element of railway business as is the average freight haul, for the passengers load and unload themselves; so that, whether they ride few or many miles, the cost of loading and unloading is neither increased nor diminished. On the contrary, if a thousand tons of freight, once loaded, is to be hauled one hundred miles instead of fifty, the proportional cost of loading and unloading is reduced one-half.
Average Number of Miles each Passenger was Carried.
Still, the average distance passengers ride is important; for, if the number of passengers remains the same and their ride is shorter, the receipts are diminished. The returns show that while the number of passengers has increased since 1882 about fifty-six per cent., the total miles travelled have not increased quite fifty per cent., marking a falling off in the average number of miles each passenger rode. The reduction is graphically shown in the little chart given herewith. This result is no doubt largely due to the great increase of suburban travel which has developed about our large cities within the past few years.
It is necessary to state, however, that the figures embraced in this study do not include the traffic of the elevated roads of New York and Brooklyn.
Passenger Profits.—Again a marked difference between freight and passenger traffic appears in comparing the chart given below with the corresponding chart on [page 440].
Profit per Passenger per Mile.
The study covers the history of the same roads in each case. The history of freight profits shows a persistent falling off, which in the nineteen years amounts to four mills per ton per mile, a loss of two-thirds of the six mills of 1870. The history delineated on this chart shows the average profit of the two roads to be almost exactly at the same point that it was in 1870, while the profits for most of the intervening years have been much greater.
Were this the record of the freight traffic, it would be much more gratifying to the managers of the roads, for the New York Central & Hudson River Railway receives about twice as much, and the Pennsylvania Railway receives four times as much, from freights as from passengers. Attention is invited to the opposite results of the same policy on these two roads in 1876. The chart of passenger rates on [page 441] marks a decided reduction of rates by the Pennsylvania Road, and a slight reduction by the New York Central & Hudson River Road. The chart of profits records an increase for the former and a decrease for the latter. This year (1876) is the date of the Centennial World's Fair at Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Road had an enormous increase of passenger traffic (double that of the following year), a record which it did not equal until 1887. The New York Central & Hudson River Road had but a slightly increased traffic, the record of which it passed in 1881.