TABLE II. Length of Bridging of Wood, Stone and Metal, December 31,

· Bridge Work Done in the Year ending December 31, 1917.

During the year ending June 30, 1918, the following work has been done by the signal department.

The following statement gives the number of signal inspections which have been made:

134

58

Nineteen recommendations of changes in signals were made. Sixty-three plans for interlocking towers and for signal changes

were examined and checked. The operation of signals was observed from locomotives both by day and by night. The signal conditions involved in eight collisions and seven derailments were investigated. Twelve failures were found and remedied. Two automatic stops were investigated. Approval of proposed changes or new construction was recommended in nineteen cases and these changes were adopted before the plans were approved. Extensive additions to the signal systems during the past year were as follows:

Automatic signals between Braintree and Greenbush on the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad, which replaced the time interval system.

A new lighting system has been installed to light the signals through the Back Bay Cut of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railroad.

Telegraph order signals have been installed at several stations on the Boston & Albany railroad and are gradually being extended over the system.

All signals between Charlton and Palmer on the Boston & Albany railroad have had storage batteries added to replace the primary batteries.

In addition to the above, the following has been done jointly with other employees of the Commission:

Valuation of the Swansea & Seekonk street railway.
Transportation of employees to and from Fore River.

TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT.

The following figures show the work of the telephone inspectors of the department for the year:

Complaints,

993

Inspections at subscribers' stations by the inspectors of the department,

1,325

Service tests by inspectors and from the department,
Visits to exchanges by inspectors, other than on complaints, .

On a majority of complaints several visits were necessary. While appreciating that the war business had added substantially to the company's traffic and plant "load," it seemed desirable to continue a reasonable, healthy inspection service in

order that those responsible for the maintenance of telephone traffic might be helped in their efforts to maintain an orderly service standard.

In this connection we are gratified to be able to state that any important changes in traffic or plant conditions which seemed to our inspectors to be necessary were at once taken care of by the officials assigned by the telephone company to attend to Commission matters.

During the several weeks of the epidemic, systematic inspections and service tests were abandoned, owing to the greatly reduced forces of the company, particularly in the traffic department.

In the matter of conservation of war material, as applied to new installations and extensions of existing service, the department has co-operated in every way with the companies. Of the many cases involving that question which reached the department, not a few were denied as unnecessary.

With the heavy increased used of telephone service, the department deems it absolutely necessary to again call the attention of subscribers having party-line service in the larger exchanges, and particularly in the Metropolitan district, to their great responsibility, not only to other subscribers who may be on their lines but to the subscribing community as a whole. That responsibility calls for a reasonable use of such service in length of conversations, in order that all subscribers desiring to use the service may have an opportunity to do so. The Massachusetts Public Service Commission, four years ago, was the pioneer in the United States in asking that telephone talks be limited to five minutes on party lines, and certainly not beyond that time after another subscriber had indicated a desire to use the line. The results following that request were very gratifying. Telephone "visits" in the larger exchanges were noticeably shorter and amity between neighbors on the same line increased.

War traffic, however, has changed that condition, but the department is co-operating with the telephone company to the fullest extent in eliminating unfair use of service. For a modest woman who courteously asks to be allowed to use the line after some one has had it one hour and twenty-three minutes to

be invited to go where ice is scarce is certainly not fair treatment, and it is quite safe to say that in the future there will be a much larger percentage than ever before of party-line subscribers who, failing to respond to reasonable requests to divide the time with other subscribers, will suddenly find themselves without service or compelled to take a special line. The department asks the co-operation of every fair-minded subscriber in this work from now on.

While it cannot be said that traffic conditions in the different exchanges are yet normal, it is quite clear that the percentage of operating errors is all out of proportion to other conditions.

As far as it is possible to do so, with a very limited inspection force, this phase of the service is to be made the subject of a special study by the department early in the coming year.

One of the most vital things to-day entering into the prosecution of any form of business is telephone service, and the great business community is entitled to protection at all times. There ought always to be a reasonable margin of safety in telephone traffic standards. Telephone service is the most sensitive of all public services, and, when once it passes below the danger point, it is very difficult to get back to a proper standard. Even before war conditions the service was near the danger point. Now that we are quickly returning to peace conditions, the appointment of two additional inspectors is strongly urged, in order that we may, to that extent, be able to put our finger on the weak spots and compel those responsible for telephone traffic to recognize the fact that there is that danger line below which they must not go. The present size of our inspection force permits of comparatively little work along these lines, because of routine complaint matters and things incidental thereto.

A readjustment of the rates within the Metropolitan district is very much overdue. On July 1, 1915, the New York Telephone Company was required to install an all-measured service covering the entire city of New York, including Brooklyn, and to-day that municipality enjoys the simplest form of rate schedule in existence anywhere in the world. In Boston and suburban districts we have had for many years a most complicated schedule of rates. For instance, the central business section of Boston is segregated as a separate telephone district in

which there is an unlimited service carrying a rate of $125, covering 83,000 subscribers. The department has figures showing that some subscribers to that form of service are getting service at a rate as low as two-tenths of a cent per call. This is but an illustration of the peculiarities of the schedule. The department ought to have a larger appropriation, one sufficient to make a proper engineering study of the rates in effect all over the state, and those within the Metropolitan district at all events, with a view to the establishment of a simpler and a more equitable rate schedule, under which the larger users will be paying their proportionate share of the expense of producing service. It is possible that this could be brought about by the adoption of a schedule along the lines followed in New York.

The question of district service is also important. Subscribers in cities and towns within the Metropolitan district, twenty to thirty miles apart, are permitted to have unlimited service with each other, and with 40 or 50 other places, and the same right is denied to communities only a few miles apart in other sections of the state. This does not seem just, and such service should either be discontinued or thrown open to all communities. The coming year would seem to be the time to clean up the larger irregularities and inequities of rates and service instead of waiting until we have entered upon a period of great industrial activity.

The work of the department concerning telegraph matters is at no time of large volume, owing to the fact that telegraph traffic is largely of an interstate character.

Out of the large number of complaints on telephone matters, comparatively few have required the attention of the full Commission. The department has continued the policy of holding quasi-public hearings or conferences at a number of places from which petitions or serious complaints have been received, and in practically all such cases some adjustment of the matter has been reached satisfactory to all parties without public hearings by the Commission.

Among other changes which the New England Telephone company has been making has been the elimination of so-called district service in a number of communities where such service has existed. Several such districts have been eliminated and several others are now the subject of conferences between the