Ulster: meeting EEC's challenge
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Ralph Allen in Belfast reviews the road transport scene in the province in lhe light of its sevenfold improved export performanc
HE BEST news ever to come :rom Government statistics was 3iven by the At Hon Don Conannon, Minister responsible for :rade in Northern Ireland, recently. He said that in the past 10 years Ulster's direct exports lad risen from ,E79m to over E600m per annum. It was a Iribute to the Province's ability o deliver on time and at the right price, he added.
These figures say two things sbout the haulage industry in Vorthern Ireland: first, that it is )fficient and competitive, and second, that it must be moving :urther and further afield with an ncreasing quantity of goods. In short, it is a growth industry with all the potential advantages )nd problems which that mplies.
It may be seen, then, that the new Ministers of State for Northern Ireland, Hugh Rossi and Michael Alison, do not face exclusively security problems.
Police are too preoccupied with security matters to give nuch attention to road haulage regulation enforcement; this has not been helped by the recent razing to the ground by fire of the Vehicle Licensing Office in Ormeau Avenue.
Ulster has a road-based economy. Except for certain bulk cargoes, such as cement from Drogheda and some specialist cross-Border requirements — Guinness in special wagons from Dublin — there is little goods traffic by rail. The province has 14,550 miles of road, including 67 miles of motorway, and some £75m is spent annually on roadworks.
Currently work is in progress to link the M1 and the M2, a project which will give access to the two main ports of Belfast and Larne from almost every corner of the Province in under two hours' driving time.
It is not surprising therefore that there is a high concentration of commercial vehicles in the area, or that there should be a wide range of haulage interests, large and small.
There are nearly 40,000 commercial vehicles and of these, just over 4,000 are reg istered in the names of licensed haulage companies_ Biggest by far of those companies is Northern Ireland Carriers, part of the National Freight Corporation group, with more than 400 vehicles in its fleet.
The gap between this comparative giant and the substan tial private companies like Dukes of Portadown or VVordie Cowans of Belfast is wide — but fleets of 70 or more are still very big in provincial terms. There are, of course, hundreds of owner-operators on the roads of Northern Ireland, most of whom would tackle the Irish Sea routes and quite a few the English Channel as well if a worthwhile contract presented itself.
Indeed, there are those who know Europe very well indeed and have attained profitability on the tide of exports which, as Mr Concannon has pointed out, have been rising by nearly 25 per cent a year since 1968.
• Unfortunately there are also those who have riot taken account of the rising costs of the past five years, in particular the price of the vehicle they drive which in the past five years has twice doubled its price.
Those who have to face the competition from the improvident few believe that rates have been held artificially low. The industry generally needs to do a little inflation accounting and review as tariffs.
One belief which is shared by many hauliers, wise and foolish, is that trucks were made to work at their top weights — and sometimes perhaps a little more. It is an attitude which is immortalised in the ballad about the good ship Irish Rover: "There were four miIlion dogs and five million hogs /In the hold of the Irish Rover." She foundered, of course.
An additional need which is widely recognised is that, for some operators, trucks should have more than adequate power, economy being of secondary importance.
But the industry is changing in far more subtle ways, a process which is due as much to the new Europe of which Britain and Northern Ireland are a part, as to any other cause.
Higher standards are being insisted upon in every corner of the industry; drivers' hours are being gradually reduced; management is being put on a more professional plane; vehicles are coming under closer scrutiny. The last "cowboyis indeed heading for the sunset. . .
It is going to be tough meeting the challenge of the Eighties but it is recognised that the legislation which originally set out to improve safety standards has become an instrument to raise the general level of efficiency.
The Certificate of Professional Competence examination has shown many "old hands" that they can no longer demand a place for themselves in the industry as of right. It is true that, in their wisdom, the licensing authorities in Northern Ireland have been rather more lenient in dealing with applications for "grandfather rights", but it may be better in the long run for those who are caught the CPC net.
In Britain, of course, thE rights expire for ever at the e of December this year, and applications for CPC passes v be considered after that. But Ulster there is no deadline: al one who can satisfy the lice' ing authority that he or she -competent" will receive C status.
The introduction of t tachograph is the next hurdle be cleared — unless there check on EEC legislation union or even Governme action. The Ulster haulier COL be adversely affected by sucl turn of events because of coui his South of Ireland counterp has already accepted phasing-in of the "spy in I cab".
The signs are that the way being prepared for the introdi tion of the device, howev since only a few weeks ago 1 Department of the Environmo announced the introduction c road transport survey in t Province similar to that wh has been in operation in Brit for the past seven years.
Oddly enough, it is exac the kind of information whl would satisfy the compilers EEC Directive 78/546, wh requires that member Ste. should compile information road haulage.
Northern Ireland was oi regarded as a reluct, European, for it voted to join EEC by the slimmest margins. Since then the tra port industry has opened new routes to the ContinE very often with Europ( vehicles, and the benefits of vast market have beco apparent to industry.
Industrialists are n generally in favour of the E while some politicians against, but a pro-Europ( stance does not upset mt people here.
There can be few that hi not benefited from the link, haulage sector perhaps mos. all.