Who's for the Ferry?
Page 31
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EXPANDING exports demand expanding transport 1-:d services. In 1955 exports from the UK to Western Europe were 28 per cent of our total. Now it is our biggest export market.
The import story is the same—Western Europe has overtaken the sterling area as our major supplier and all the EEC countries are now among our top trading partners.
That in a nutshell is the impelling reason for the remarkable expansion in freight deliverieS to and from the Continent by the combined exercise of road vehicles and ferry services. In stark contrast to the abortive deliberations of the commission of the European Communities on transport matters which have failed to yield a single effective decision, forceful industrialists and traders have broken through barriers—completing sales deals to the tune of £1,894m in 1966 alone.
But the same forceful men will insist that the final link in the chain of manufacture, sales and distribution does not turn out to be the weak link and frustrate the entire exercise, which may have taken months of preparation. Whether this weakness arises through delay, damage or non-delivery the result is the same—not only wasted effort but probably the loss of a hard-won customer.
On the domestic front UK road transport operators have achieved their undoubted success as an industry by their ability to collect and deliver to the customer's satisfaction and reassurance. Now increasing numbers are doing just the same to and from the Continent.
In this special ferries and Continental operations number the experiences of old hands and newcomers to Continental operation are contrasted, among many other aspects. But an underlying emphasis is the need for road transport to provide extra service to the customer over and above traditional means of conveying Continental traffic if road transport is to justify its existence.
A threat to the expansion of road transport to and from the Continent is that already rationalization of UK ports is being proposed. The proposal is to maximize the throughput and so lower the unit load cost of sophisticated and expensive terminal equipment. Sound economics in theory, perhaps, but the menace of a man-made bottleneck looms. And among the first to suffer would be the road transport operator whose standard of service would then be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
So the Continental operator must be on his guard to ensure that his interests are not ignored.
Flexibility as well as reliability must be retained as key factors in the service he offers.