"Floating " Traffic to be Gained ‘"s a substantial tonna g e
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of floating " traffic suitable for either road or rail conveyance which could he gained "by • the form of transport better prepared to give service and reasonable terms, Mr. A. G. Marsden, n•ansport advisor-to Unilever, Ltd.; told the Merseyside and district section of the Institute of -Transport," last week. Ile was reading a paper entitled " 'The Changing Face of Transport." • One was amazed at the sheer virility of road transport, he said. Contributing £370m. a year in taxation and operating on a congested and inadequate road system, it still managed to compete successfully with other forms of transport and continue to progress. The future structure of transport, despite the new emphasis on freedom and decentralization, would never be quite what it was before 1947, and that might not be a bad thing, said Mr. Marsden. The present was not a railway age, hut a transport age. In most Western European countries, the railways were lighting for solvency and road transport for more freedom, whilst users urged
that all fors of transport should be available atm maximum efficiency and that artificial restrictions should be avoided.
In the past four or five years, the transport machine had been starved of capital, whereas the proportion allocated to the electricity, gas and manufacturing industries had steadily increased. Mr. Marsden suggested that in the task of re-organizing inland transport the British Transport Commission and its Executives had paid too little attention to customer service and too much to detail!; of organization. The pattern of transport would undergo some alteration during the next few years. Traders must ask for the best possible service. After four or five years, when the new legislation would have taken full effect, the political and practical atmosphere might be suitable for the acceptance by all parties of a Royal Commission on Transport. Such a body, carefully selected, well qualified for its task and free front outside influences, would find the ground' ready for an objective survey.