Ranana:Transport let with teeth?
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D DATES are of great significance in Argentina's history: 9, 1816, when the country declared independence from in and March 24, 1976, when the military forces took over it the Peron regime.
he corruption, misrule and )s which resulted from the led to the second. The deiination of the new govern it under the junta of General rge Videla to put the country :s feet will no doubt produce iy other significant dates in 3ntina's economic history. n transport terms the first will be early in 1979 when Transport Act resulting from National Transport Plan be es law. UK operators could orgiven for believing that the r legislation was a carbon y of our own 1968 Act — it ost is. Its chief draughtsman arge H. Kogan, who read for MSc in transport at London versity.
\rgentine transport is to iefit from this young man's t to the UK, but the operators Act affects might feel the n "benefit" inappropriate. Domestic hauliers in Argent fall into two classes — the 3 who engage in interstate 'fie between the country's 23 erated states and those who rk within their own state. The arstate men have to be regmed or licensed and then only certain states and traffics. a truly domestic man is not nsed.
As far as anyone knows there
365,000 domestic hauliers, my of them owner-drivers, t accuracy in this matter, as in my other things in Argentina, not guaranteed. The vehicle pulation is measured on the nnage of goods moved by )d in 12 months. The figures ply to consignments of 5 tons more so they should be reanably accurate. There are two ..,itors, however, that must inlence the calculation, those of ivers' hours and vehicle ights.
There are no drivers hours ulations, there are no weighdges or roadside checks. Bee half the British transport mmunity downs the last of its ristmas pudding and heads in search of Shangri La, here is the bad news — they are corning.
Some semblance of order will emerge from this chaos in 1979. Statistics can be as indigestible as Christmas lunch, but here are two facts which will give some idea where Argentina intends to go in transport terms. Its domestic transport moved
91,300,000,000 tonkilometres in 1977: between January 1, 1979, and December 31, 1981, it predicts a growth rate of 5.9 per cent.
The international transport sector is, if anything, better developed than the UK's. Without wishing to spoil the season of cheer and goodwill for our men at the Ministry, the desert cowboys of a few years ago would not have existed under Argentina's international licensing system, and with all the modesty we can muster it compares almost identically with pioposals we made a few years ago.
Come to think of it, that was when Jorge Kogan was studying in London. I know he gets CM: I wonder? But away from these musings and back to the facts.
There are 89 registered international hauliers in Argentina's haulage population of over 100,000 operators. The country has common borders with Brasil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia. They have haulage quotas with the first three, but more with the other two.
The quota system is unlike the European method. It is based on tonnage rather than journey, which seems more practical.
The Brasil quota is 13,000 tons per year; Paraguay's is 4,750 and Uruguay's 3,000. The quota is increased by 100 per cent for own-account work for Brasil traffic and by 50 per cent for the other two. The total tonnage on quota is 41,500, and the 89 operators with 3,500 artics have a carrying capacity of 41,500 tons. Sorry — no more indigestible statistics.
Bananas
Distances are great, downtime is far in excess of European standards and there is an imbalance of traffic between Brasil and her neighbours. So that finding an Argentina haulier whose traffic ratio was both prosperous and developing was like finding hidden treasure. One such is Automotores Pana Rutas Argentines.
APRA began operations with a two-vehicle international licence in 1966. Today it operates 60 vehicles in total with 45 on controlled temperature international traffic, hauling apples and oranges to Brasil and taking back bananas and pineapples.
There are no complications; the company has contracts with growers to run from Rio Negro 1,400km south of Buenos Aires to San Paulo or Rio de Janeiro 4,000km north, and contracts for the return traffic; each journey is fully loaded in both directions — a happy state of affairs.
The round trip of 8,000km (5,000 miles) is run by one .driver in two weeks including terminal stops and Customs delays. The border delays are to give the Customs officers the opportunity to check the quality and condition of the cargo. These formalities can take up to two days to clear and the operator has to pay for the "privilege" at the rate of £10 a day parking fee.
However, it also has its compensations; the Customs officer sets the minimum rate that the haulier can charge, and there can be no undercutting of his _rate. There are no border taxes between South American countries.
The rate for a 4,000km (2,500 mile) trip with 20 tonnes of apples is usually about £2.50 a box; the apples cost E4 a box so that the haulage rate is just over one third of the total cost. The haulier's margin of profit is 20 per cent.
Drivers receive £500 a month plus overnight allowance; the average manager receives £250 a month — a situation not unheard of at home.
APRA employs 100 people to operate, maintain and drive its 60-vehicle fleet. Running repairs and services between trips are done by APRA, and component replacement is contracted to the Scania agent. Drivers do just that and no more — no loading, no discharging, no servicing. They are a type of elite at ARPA, which has no recruitment problems.
The main problem facing the APRA management is a restriction on international expansion. They cannot add to the licence until tonnage quotas have been renegotiated, and that could be 1980. The only hope of expansion is to buy a licence from another operator, which would cost £250,000 without the vehicles. A secondary problem finance. New vehicles in Arg tina cost 100 per cent more II in the UK and 40 per cent m than in Brasil. This means t where the Brasilian operator accept the minimum rate fc job the Argentinian must put more to cover depreciation. 1 second-hand value of a rnE mum capacity vehicle w 400,000 miles behind it al five years is 60 per cent of new price.
International transport moving on apace in Sot. America in what appears to tr well ordered manner. The frastructure of each country being developed with those. its neighbours.
On the domestic front thin are less cheerful: the impendi Transport Act will bring with an enforcement reguiremer Whether the authorities wi!I able to make it work or will ev want to is a matter for cipnjE ture. In South Amierica there no word that carries the sar degree of urgency as "torrk row"; half a day here or the does not matter — enforceme will not be easy. It could pro to be very interesting territo for tachograph manufacturers