AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

JANUS . . . danger that too much wili WRITES be made of the need for overali

18th October 1963
Page 88
Page 88, 18th October 1963 — JANUS . . . danger that too much wili WRITES be made of the need for overali
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

planning'

LATEST to embroider the theme that planning must be for transport as a whole and not for one form of transport only was Mr. Keith Granville in his presidential address to the Institute of Transport. In fact, he had very little else to say. This seems to be a common experience whenever a speaker undertakes, as Mr. Granville did, to give a talk on the future of transport and begins by insisting that there must be no piecemeal solutions. The effort to see the problem as a whole is too much, and any proposals that do emerge seem as thin and unsatisfying as the joys of Utopia, however eloquent the author's description of them.

Perhaps Mr. Granville did not feel qualified to put forward his own plans. He suggested instead that the Government should get together a group of "a dozen or so of the very finest brains the country can find ". With the help of the existing transport organizations, professional bodies and Government, the group would evolve a uniform plan for the long-term development of transport. The inference that such brains as there are at present in transport include none of the best brains in the country may have prompted one or two sour looks from members of the Institute, but one can see what Mr. Granville meant.

DR. BELCHING'S EXAMPLE He had in mind the example of Dr. Beeching, who had been called in by the Minister of Transport to suggest ways and means of reorganizing the railways and had produced a report which Mr. Granville described as "undoubtedly full of wisdom and foresight ". What he wanted was another Beeching, or perhaps several, to examine transport as a whole. Once again an inference has to be drawn. The fault Mr. Granville seemed to find in the Beeching plan was that it dealt solely with one form of transport. This is not, of course, an isolated criticism. It has already been made several times, especially at the recent Labour party conference.

Does it really amount to anything? It is true that Dr. • Beeching was asked to make proposals for the railways and for the railways only. He has protested more than once that he certainly did not ignore other forms of transport in the investigation preceding the report. He made an extensive survey of the methods adopted by traders for the cat riage of their goods, and he had to keep in mind the possibility of alternative facilities being provided when a railway service was discontinued. One or two hints in the report that co-operation might be desirable have been taken up by hauliers and repeated subsequently by Dr. Beeching himself.

There is a danger that too much will be made of the need for overall planning, and at this moment of time it is perhaps unfortunate that the opinion expressed by the Labour party should be reinforced by that of the president of the Institute of Transport. Some correlation of ideas and plans is obviously necessary. In the last year or so there have been perhaps more bodies than ever before examining various aspects of transport, including the rail.

654 ways, the estimated increase in the number of vehicles ove, the next few years, a Channel link, the major ports and communications within towns.

When the time is ripe the various reports on these and other subjects will have to be compared with each other. It is a mistaken idea to suppose that they can be fitted together like the various pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to mak( up a complete picture which will then be revealed as the ideal solution. There is no such thing, for the simple reason that the problem does not remain the same. Indeed, it is positively dangerous to produce hard-and-fast general ideas to cope with a situation which is in a state of eternal flux.

INSATIABLE NEED FOR TRANSPORT The public set the problem. They have an insatiable need for transport, both for themselves and for their goods. They will seize upon each new transport development and turn it to their own advantage, often in unexpected directions. An observer from 50 years ago might well be astonished to see millions of people lavishing money and attention on their cars, which many of them seldom use and even then only in conditions of discomfort. If a present-day observer could look 50 years ahead he might be equally astonished to find, not merely what is happening in transport, but what kind of transport seems to be preferred.

Much of the Government's activity must be concerned with following current trends and providing for them. The present trend is evident from the rapid increase in the number of road vehicles, just as a century ago it was the desire of communities to be linked by rail, and before that by canal. As new trends develop, the traces left from catering for the old have to be re-examined. Even if the present Government is not moving as quickly as might be wished, at least \it appears to recognize clearly that the demand for transport is rapidly increasing and that the pattern is changing all the time.

Failure to appreciate this point led the Labour Government after the war into the fatal error of setting up a rigid and monopolistic structure to cater for a wide section of the public's transport needs. The duty of the organization was to provide an efficient, economic, adequate and properly integrated service. Unfortunately, this was apparently not synonymous with giving the public what they needed. It took insufficient account of public caprice and of the giddy way in which people will rush after each new device, leaving the old and well-tried methods idle.

It may be that the lesson of 1947 has been learned and that the Ivory Tower has vanished for good. It would be a pity if its spirit lingered on in the mistaken idea that there is, because there ought to be, a perfect solution which would straighten out the transport tangle; that this solution could be found if only sufficient brain-power, human, superhuman or electronic, could be brought to bear on the problem; and that, once discovered, the solution would have to be translated from the abstract to the concrete, regardless of cost and in defiance if needs be of the more limited visions of 50 m. less-powerful brains.


comments powered by Disqus