American transport trends
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TODAY; transport is the most international of all industries. What happens in America, Germany, France or wherever is not of purely domestic interest in those countries: transport administrators, lawyers and operators in other countries are intimately concerned. Indeed, particularly in the equipment field—and this applies in all transport media—any delay in the worldwide dissemination of information may prove costly.
American transport organizations, in general, appreciate the value of disseminating news of their actiVities and problems to other countries. This consciousness of the value of international public relations is part of the American character: films and magazines project the American way of life throughout the world. The same philosophy motivates American vehicle manufacturers and many of the largest transport operators. Anyone who has ever seen or heard a commercial presentation by an American publicist —whether of turbine engines for lorries or singing the virtues of containerization or air freight—knows that great care is taken to project the salient points.
Because of the size of the American economy and the vast scale of US transport enterprises, it is probable that their doings are of more interest to us than ours are to them. Transport policy decisions made in London—unless of great significance over a much larger area than Britain—cut little ice in New York or Washington: second-rate powers normally follow the lead of great powers—in transport terms, America.
Containerization
If this were not so, containerization— designed to rescue American shipping from the doldrums—would not have been projected so fiercely throughout the world; Boeing jumbo-jets would not be compelling all major international airports to spend millions of pounds on new hangars, workshop facilities, runways, and cargohandling equipment; American bargecarrying ships would not be forcing ports and river authorities in Britain and Europe to plan reception berths and the consequential road or rail re-distribution facilities.
A major issue now being fought out in a Congressional sub-committee, relates to the maximum permissible size of road vehicles. Fbr 23 years the trucking (road haulage) industry in America has hoped for legislation to permit the operation of larger vehicles. The latest proposals would permit operation of 8ft 61n. wide trailers on the Interstate road systems. Such organizations as the Automobile Association and the National Federation of Women's Clubs resist the proposed legislation vigorously. Other witnesses before the committee produced statistical data to show that accidents per mile lessened as truck sizes advanced. This, surely, is an argument that cannot be stretched too far!
Anachronism One informed witness pointed to the anachronism of allowing buses 102in. wide in 40 states for local and suburban routes over the narrowest streets while prohibiting them on the broadest, new Interstate highways. "The incongruity is not compatible with optimum safety," he observed.
What seems likely to be decisive is that the biggest American corporations have a vital stake in the proposed legislation authorizing wider vehicles. The number of commodities in 8ft lengths is increasing. Plywood, wallboard, certain steel shapes and assembly parts for heavy manufacturing stack more efficiently in less space across 84ft wide trailers than lengthwise in 8ft wide trailers. This factor, likely to be pressed both by professional hauliers and own-account operators may tip the scales in favour of the proposed legislation.
Another interesting development concerning the operation of larger vehicles is reported from New York where the "Thruway" authority would apparently welcome legislation allowing "doublebottoms"—two coupled 30 or 40ft container trailers—to be used within two or three miles of the main road artery. There is precedent for this approach at Fultonville, New York, where doubles are allowed for a distance of some 1,500ft off the main highway. Many operators and manufacturers in Britain would welcome similar moves to authorize double—or even treble-bottomequipment within a mile or two of our motorways. Perhaps, as we all become so much more "export-orientated", the cost-savings possible with• larger multiple outfits will make such advocacy politically respectable. It is not too soon for the road operating associations here to lobby possible opponents of the idea.
The US Senate—which like our House of Lords sometimes marches ahead of the elected chamber—is considering dividing the country into multi-state "Transportation Regions" for planning all modes of transport. The commissions would oversee everything from inter-city freight and passenger surface transport, to water and air facilities. Commission costs could be borne, it is envisaged, by Federal government to the tune of 90 per cent, the balance coming from state sources. Senator Magnuson, introducing the legislation, said it was "time to end fragmentation and dispersion" in transport planning. The regions would be defined by population and area cohesiveness.
Attractive as this idea is in terms of transport theory there would clearly be many difficulties in the administration of such gargantuan authorities. Quite apart from the problem of defining their areas, no co-ordination of the interests of the various modes—air, land and water—would be possible unless on the basis of generally agreed principles. Is air to be favoured against surface transport? Who says whether rail or road interests should be favoured? The spokesmen for water transport, slow as it is, would not be mute in the face of growing congestion on roads.
Co -ordination
Of course, it might be possible to work out a formula for co-ordination between modes on the basis that the only co-ordination to be attempted should be to the financial advantage of the parties concerned. That formula may be practicable between surface carriers but I suspect that the pressure groups organized by some of the interested parties would not make the task of reconciling divergent views a simple one. Unless the legal framework was engineered to suit the proposed regional structure, with the Department of Transportation—equivalent to our Ministry of Transport—possessing sharp teeth to "hold the ring," I feel that Senator Magnuson's ambitious, not to say very sensible scheme, may be for the 1980s.
It is, though, a sign and a portent. In Britain we are embarked on Passenger (Conurbation) Transport Authorities. It might have been wiser for the PTA set-up to be broadened to include freight. City distribution problems are desperately crying out for rational solutions. The Transportation Regions envisaged in America are in scale with the Common Market infra-structure—which in transport, agriculture and other matters has not made spectacular progress in the past decade.
Theoretical concepts will continue to he canvassed on a continent-wide basis in Europe and elsewhere. There are several current investigations dealing with international transport integration in Europe —where national boundaries are merely an inconsequential nuisance to some visionary planners. When transport investments soaking up scores of millions of pounds are called for in Europe the anachronism of frontiers ought not to imperil the viability of the investment.
In London and other large cities road-building plans are meeting increasing opposition from amenity groups, not to say the householders affected by new motorways. Mr. Anthony Crosland, now responsible for housing, local government and transport, will have to reconcile within himself many divergent, politically explosive claims. Despite the massive road building in the last 20 years in America, there is no sign the road system is at last nearing completion. The new Federal Highway • Administrator, Mr. Francis C. Turner, is currently facing at least 15 freeway disputes. Some solutions proposed by the objectors would cost 10 times the original estimated cost of the new road projects and Mr. Turner is not easily satisfied that the extra cost could be justified.
Crash programme Soon after his appointment, with the Nixon administration, Mr. Turner envisaged a crash road-building programme in the next 20 years surpassing anything accomplished in the past. Of 52,000 new road mileage called for, about 10,000 miles would pass through "exurbia"--denoting metropolitan fringe areas.
With more than a trace of optimism, Mr. Turner's office hopes soon to perfect a computerized scale of community values to determine the most practicable route for motorways. Who can be surprised that, so far, there is no unanimity in weighting the various factors?
"The community in the end will have to be resolved into one single spokesman," said Mr. Turner, recently. "It'll either be through the ballot box or through an elected official who says, 'I am the mayor. I am the voice of the community'." He continued: "Our experience is that once a decision is reached and you go ahead, usually all this dissent disappears. The noise occurs while you're doing the talking." In Britain we have as much need for mobility as our American cousins and very much less land to play with in developing our road network. Mindful of the fate of Mr. Douglas Jay, who as Minister responsible wanted to press ahead with Stansted airport against the vociferous objections of a few thousand rural dwellers, I suspect that any British Minister of Transport will remember Mr. Jay's (and King Charles') fate before claiming omnisciently that a particular road improvement can go through regardless. Cost/benefit studies, full-scale public inquiries, appeals to the Queen—all must be suffered by a prudent Minister before the bulldozers commence operations.
In Britain there appears to be a dearth of estimates of the capital required in transport in the next decade or so. One estimate concerning American transport investment suggests that if the US national economy grows at rate of 4 per cent a year the country's gross national product will double by 1985. "For transportation", said Mr. W. J. Barta, vice-chairman of the Chromalloy Corporation recently, "this means that enough capital has to be generated in the next 15 years to provide capacity equal to that now in service phis more capital for replacement of present capacity as it wears out."
Mr. Barta was at pains to stress in his talk to a Kiwanis Club meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, that traditional hostilities between transport modes were breaking down under the weight of marketing studies. He foresaw a great future for the Lykes Bros. Steamship Line carrying loaded barges for delivery up the river Rhine, saving the expense of port unloading and loading. This development, said Mr. Barta, "could be as important to the barge lines on the export and import segment of their traffic as the container revolution".
Road hauliers in Britain may be affected for good or ill if barge deliveries up estuaries become popular. In Europe, the inland waterway system is a great natural asset that is usually supported by governments to the limit, often in the face of criticism by road and rail transport people. Mr Barta claimed that the average rate per barge ton mile was three-tenths of a cent—the same as it was in the 1920s.
In Canada the cauldron of transport ideas continues to boil. Mr. John L. Eyre, newly elected president of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum, says research is slowly changing the Canadian transportation industry, but notwithout opposition.
Resisting change "We are now getting research stuffed down our throats and to some degree we are still resisting it," said Mr. Eyre "This industry has resisted change gloriously. The steamship lines and the railroads in pre-war times and the trucking companies even now are run by Czars. This is an industry that has been run by Big Daddy, the man whose judgment was the judgment of God."
Mr. Eyre, author of a book The Unhappy Marriage which details the shipping industry's reluctance to adopt containerization, told the Forum: "Big Daddy is slowly being replaced by younger transportation men with university degrees and trained in the use of computers and new systems. The transport research forum is a place where our yoUng guys who are completely frustrated with their bosses can come and give vent to their thoughts."
The $64 question seems to be—on both sides of the Atlantic—How long to convert frustrated young transport men into Big Daddies? Perhaps someone should start a British Transport Research Forum to find Out.