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" Ideas Men" Needed in Transport

15th December 1950
Page 49
Page 49, 15th December 1950 — " Ideas Men" Needed in Transport
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Original Thought and Creative Imagination Required to Deal with Present -day Transport Problems, but Special Training is Necessary to Develop the RightApproach

THE transport operator has for generations been pushed along by science and invention, not always in the best interests either of the operator or the user. I am of the opinion that the time has arrived when the operator should take the foremost place in pioneering transport progress, because it should be for the operatcyr to study the future needs of the user and.. translate translate them in such a way that research departments can make their most effective contribution to over

some of the difficulties inherent in all future planning."

In these .words, Mr. P. J. R. Tapp, delivering the sixth Henry Spurner memorial lecture entitled "Inventions

and Transport," before the Institute of Transport, on Wednesday, made a plea for "ideas men " to supplement the research departments of transport uncle rta kings.

Mr. Tapp, chairman of the Meat Transport Organization, Ltd., and a part-rime member of the Road Haulage Executive, proposed that research tiepartments should be supplemented by small teams of men of creative imagination—as opposed to scientists and technicians--eharged with the duties of measuring the next step in transport progress, of full consideration of the user's needs and of making proposals on a "first idea" basis for eliminating the difficulties which would prevent progress from being made.

As an example of the type of problem which these men might be called upon to investigate, Mr. Tapp assumed that the first ideas team had been asked to consider whether any progress could be made in the use or design of multiple loading vehicles. The team's report might follow these lines:—

(I) The trailer type of outfit does not add to road safety; (2) the only alternative is the articulated vehicle. Two suggestions might be put forward to eliminate the towbar, with its attendant danger and poor manceuvrability, and to dispose of the disadvantages of the articulated vehicle—wasted length, Tow stability factor and difficult reversing. • The ffist suggestion was for a fourwheeled rigid tractor and a fourwheeled trailer which, when coupled, formed In effect a rigid eight-wheeler. The front axle Of the trailer became the rear •axle of the four-wheeled bogie.

This would promote—quieker and safer coupling, greater .inanceuvrability and would eliminate the tosikar gaits • The second proposal was •a Modified six-Wheeler with a cletachahle • body 'which, When. coupled up, created a rigid six-wheeler. The, two rear axles

would remain parallel'Whon in motion, . . and the rear portion might articulate vertically about the horizontal tine across the chassis behind the cab. The technical problems which these suggestions created would be within the scope of the engineering department, which would solve them with the assistance of the research department.

Transport to-day bristled with problems which coutd not be dealt with on the basis of a side-line approach, Mr. Tapp declared.

' Technical students should be enabled to round off their studies with a course intended to stimulate creative thought. Students who passed such a course successfully would form the teams proposed, which wouldrepresent the link between user, operator and the research departments of large transport undertakings. They could, in a limited way, study the proper balance between cast, safety and speed. The work of such teams might also create. a link between transport industries in other countries.

At present there was undue emphasis on the value of speed as compared with safety and cost, said Mr. Tapp. It was not in the social interest, nationally or internaticrnally, to continue to develop transport facilities, as a whole, on the present lines.

Progress by invention was spasmodic —sometimes even Catastrophic. It did not appear impossible to shape creative ability to deal with the direction in which transport should progress in the national interest. It might become possible later to extend guidance not only on a basis of local interest, but as part of a wise and considered international plan for social progress.


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