IMPROVED MEANS AND APPARATUS FOR ASCERTAINING AND INDICATING THE NUMBER OF PASSENGERS WHO TRAVEL BY A PUBLIC CONVEYANCE, THE DISTANCE THEY TRAVEL, AND THE AMOUNT OF THE FARES THEY PAY
Year: 1872

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Griffiths and William
Busby at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 19th October 1872.
We, ROBERT GRIFFITHS, of Rhual Issa, Mold, in the County of Flint,
Engineer, and WILLIAM BUSBY, of Hayton Park, near Liverpool, in the
County of Lancaster, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention
for "IMPROVED MEANS AND APPARATUS FOR ASCERTAINING AND INDICATING THE
NUMBER OF PASSENGERS WHO TRAVEL BY A PUBLIC CONVEYANCE, THE DISTANCE
THEY TRAVEL, AND THE AMOUNT OF THE FARES THEY PAY," to be as follows:-
:―
This Invention relates to improved means and apparatus whereby the
proprietors of public conveyances (such as omnibuses, steam boats, or
other vessels or conveyances) can furnish the conductors of such
conveyances with an apparatus which contains tickets or tokens to be
given to each passenger on entering (or afterwards) the public con-
veyance, which ticket or token is to be given up to the conductor on
leaving the vehicle, by which he will see what section or part of the
road he the passenger entered, who pays his fare accordingly.
Apparatus is arranged in accordance with our Invention in the
following manner:-We construct a box with as many divisions in it as

page_text: there are sections or divisions upon the distance over which the conveyance
travels, a different fare being charged for each or several of these
divisions. The box is furnished with slides for drawing out the tickets
for either inside or outside passengers (or for first or second class
passengers); these slides draw the tickets or tokens from the bottom
part of the box, and when the passenger gives back his ticket to the
conductor there is an opening near the top part of the box into which
he deposits the tickets as he receives them. Above that opening at the
top of the box there is another receptacle for a few of another description
of tickets, into which the proprietor puts a few tickets before he locks up
the back door of the box after the tickets which the conductor has to
give to each passenger is put in. The conductor has then a key given
to him which by sliding along a groove on the top of the box or
otherwise, will open one of the front doors when the conductor slides
it opposite to the door he requires to open for giving out the tickets to
the passengers commencing the journey, and also to put back the tickets
he has taken from the passengers who leave the conveyance.
When the vehicle arrives at the end of a section, or at a station of the
road or journey, the conductor closes the door which corresponds to the
section he has just gone over, and by the closing of the door he releases
one of the tickets previously mentioned contained in a compartment at
the top of the box, which ticket falls down on to the tickets he has
taken from the passengers, which ticket will thus form a division
between the tickets he has taken for each journey or section he makes,
or should he by any means reopen that division he had closed and put
tickets in which ought to have been deposited there before.
We would here observe that only one door in the front of the box
can be opened for giving out or putting in the tickets when the
passenger leaves at one and the same time, as the key and ticket catches
are so arranged that the conductor must first shut the door before he
can open the next, and so on. There is also an indicator inside the
locked up part of the box which indicates each time the key has been
passed along the groove for opening the front doors of the box where
the conductor draws out the tickets for the passenger, or puts them in
when the passenger leaves.
When the conveyance has been its journey or journeys, the proprietor

page_text: many tickets have changed places, and he can see or know the amount
of money taken by the conductor, and the number of times the front
doors have been opened since he has locked up the door at the back of
the box with the tickets therein.
Another part of our improvements consists in arranging a series
of chambers containing tickets representing the separate values of each
section of a journey, and at the commencement of a journey as each
passenger enters the conveyance the conductor withdraws a ticket from
the first of the series of compartments and gives it to the passengers, who
returns it to the conductor on leaving the vehicle, by which he sees what
the passenger has to pay, and then drops the ticket into a receptacle
combined with the apparatus.
After passing each successive section or stage of a journey the
conductor actuates the apparatus so as to bring forward a fresh com-
partment containing tickets and a receptacle for receiving them in place
of the previous ones, such tickets being perforated or marked so as to
represent that particular stage or section of the journey. These tickets
are then delivered in succession to the passengers as they enter, and on
their leaving are deposited in the receptacle then open for receiving
them. Thus during each successive stage of a journey tickets
representing the various fares are delivered from a fresh compartment,
and are deposited in a different receptacle to the previous stage, and at
the end of the journey the proprietor by counting the tickets in each
receptacle and examining their several values, can readily ascertain how
much the conductor has received.
The compartment containing the tickets and the receptacles for
receiving them from the passengers may be arranged in a circle so as to
rotate or otherwise as desired.