to a wagon or truck meant an out-of-pocket expense to him of $1.50, based on a maintenance cost of $1.00 per hour and an earning capacity of 50 cents per hour. Another point worthy of consideration in this connection is that the express service is more expeditious and is surrounded with greater safeguards than the freight service; as a consequence, only a very substantial difference in favor of the freight charge should warrant sending by freight rather than by express.

This work should be assigned to the routing clerk of the traffic department, who by experience soon becomes able to determine readily which methodfreight or express-is more economical.

CHARTING THE CITY

Even more valuable than the general district chart described above is a large scale chart of a few square miles adjacent to the factory or industry, embracing the manufacturing and shipping district of the region. On this are marked the freight receiving and distributing stations, the express stations, factories, and warehouses whence supplies are drawn, and important local customers. A clear picture of this kind makes it easy to route and dispatch trucks intelligently_and economically.

A successful plan for delivering and picking up loads involves the use of a large map of the city -mounted on a felt or cork backing into which tacks, with heads of different colors, can be easily and firmly pressed. The map is divided into zones, each of which may be served by one truck. The stops or deliveries to be made are indicated for Truck 1 by red tacks, for Truck 2 by blue tacks, for Truck 3 by green tacks, etc.

Conditions will have to be thoroly studied before the boundaries of the zones can be definitely determined. Obviously, a highly developed manufacturing district will require a greater amount of service than residential districts, or those where the manufacturing and shipping centers are scattered.

Likewise, as concerns stops to be made at points adjacent to border lines, if a particular stop can be reached better from the blue route than from the red route, the red tack is pulled out and a blue tack substituted.

ROUTING AND SAVING

The shipping clerk ought to write out each trip of each truck in advance, and the driver should follow the written instructions. Definitely routing the trucks in this manner enables the shipping room to reach the driver at one of his stops with additional instructions if occasion should arise after the truck has left the plant. The shipping room should preserve duplicate copies, and should summarize the work performed by each truck. The form in Fig. 38 shows the essentials of a weekly summary. It is a source of material economy to secure the coöperation of drivers by paying bonuses for an excellent record of trips made, fuel saved, mileage per gallon of gasoline, clear receipts, and tonnage hauled. What may be accomplished in the conservation of equipment and the contingent expense as concerns local transport service is evidenced by the instance cited in connection with Fig. 39.

The day's inbound and outbound tonnage of the industry (A) was distributed as follows:

To accomplish this delivery four trips were actually made, as indicated by the light lines:

The traffic department prepared a graph similar to that used in Fig. 39, showing that these deliveries could have been made in a single trip as indicated by the heavy black line. The distance would have been reduced almost one half, the time about two thirds. saving in fuel, depreciation, and other items is evident.

ELASTIC SYSTEM

The

If a city is blocked off into zones according to the map plan, attention should be paid to zone border points. Sometimes a truck assigned to one zone can make a delivery in an adjoining zone with little or no inconvenience. For example, if the dividing line ran between E and F in Fig. 39, it would probably be best to route both points inside the same zone.