YARDSTICKS?
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Political Commentary
By JANUS CONCLUSIONS about road goods transport must always be accepted with caution if they are based on statistics. For one thing, the statistics are relatively sparse, but even those that are available are often approximations with a wide margin of error, or have no easily established relationship with each other. The annual reports of the British Transport Commission illustrate the state of affairs without disguise. They provide page after page of figures about the railways. Many of the figures are for decoration rather than use, and others that would be more serviceable are not provided; but at least there is quantity if not always quality. A few lines are sufficient to provide all the information that the Cornmission feel disposed to give about the transport by road.
The position has even deteriorated a little. At one time the Commission included some scant details about their road services in their monthly statistics, now published once every four weeks. On some pretext or other the practice was discontinued a few years ago and not subsequently resumed, so that now there are available only the scant details once a year in the Commission's report.
. If the B.T.C. are under no compulsion to publish more than this, one sympathizes with their reluctance. There is no obligation on independent operators, or C-licence holders to give the kind of information about themselves that is found in the Commission's reports, and they make no effort to provide the information voluntarily. Only twice since the war have the Ministry of Transport intervened and made a full-scale survey of road goods transport, the first during a week in September, 1952, and the second during a week in April, 1958.
Some correlation has since been found between the general picture that each of these surveys reveals and the results of a periodical census of road traffic. A figure based on this correlation is now a regular feature of monthly tables of statistics published by the Government. So far . the figure each month confirms what one would expect. The volume of traffic carried by road is going up rapidly and steadily. The downward trend of rail traffic continues, although it has slowed down recently, perhaps partly because there is more traffic available in general, partly because of improvements brought about by the modernization scheme, and partly because, as the report for 1959 points out delicately, "in a number of cases charges were reduced."
Rough and Ready Pointer
Measuring the rise or fall in the volume of traffic carried by road and by rail has its uses. It provides a rough and ready pointer to industrial activity generally—although there is some evidence that the relationship is not exact. It shows up the progressive change in the relative importance of the two main forms of inland transport. But there are certain questions it will not readily answer. It does not necessarily provide a guide to operating efficiency. especially on the road side, where there has been a substantial increase in the number of vehicles sharing the available traffic. Nor does it distinguish between British Road Services, independent hauliers and C-licence holders.
Material for making this last distinction may at least be found in the survey of 1952. At that time most hauliers were restricted to a radius of 25 miles and B.R.S. were not required to hold carriers' licences. The report was, therefore, able to set out clearly, for example, the ton-miles covered by each category of operator. For independent
hauliers the total during the year was 4,300m., for B.R.S. 4,000m., for the road vehicles of British Railways 100m., and for C-licence holders 10,400m.
The 1958 survey would in some ways have been even more valuable than it is if it had followed more exactly • the lines of its predecessor. During the intervening period, 'however, the 25-mile limit had been abolished and the Commission had been given licences for their road
• vehicles. In addition, the compilers of the report confused rather than clarified the issue by an attempt to differentiate precisely between transport for hire. and transport on own account. This mainly involved transferring work on A contract. and a proportion of work on B licence from one category to the other.
The ton-mile figures for 1952 itemized above add up to 18,800m. The total for 1958 is shown in the survey as 23,100m., but is not split up in any way. For this one mist rely upon the figures given for the sample week, and even here there are no separate details for nationalized road transport. Reference to the appropriate annual report of the Commission does not help. The tonnage carried by B.R.S. and the miles travelled are given. There is no separate figure of ton-miles. An attempt to work it out would have to be an estimate only, of doubtful value when so many of the other figures concerned are approximations based upon a sample.
No Comparison
Useful though the concept of the ton-mile may be, therefore, it does not help much in a comparison between the progress of independent and nationalized road transport. Less satisfactory, but easier, is a comparison based on tonnage. In the sample week in 1952, for example, there were about 71-m. tons of traffic carried by hauliers, including nationalized transport. There were 170,000 vehicles, and the average carried by each vehicle was 43 tons. The average had risen to 52 tons, or by 21 per cent., in the sample week in 1958.
If the figures for B.R.S. alone are considered, it will be seen that they do not conform to the general pattern. The averake tonnage carried in each B.R.S. vehicle was 5 per cent. less in 1958 than in 1952. Against this background. the 1959 report of the Commission is at least encouraging. It shows that the tonnage per vehicle has risen again to the 1952 level. In so far as the inferences drawn from the periodical censuses of traffic can be relied on, however, they indicate that the rise in operating efficiency of B.R.S. between 1958 and 1959 was below the average for road goods transport as a whole. _• .
To complete the comparison between 1952 and 1958, it should be noted that the average tonnage .carried by vehicles on C licence fell by 10 per cent., and that the total tonnage carried by the railways fell by 13 per cent., from 300m. to 260m. tons. The total road share went up from 900m, to 1,000m. tons, but in proportion the number of vehicles rose more rapidly, from 996,770 to 1,271,340.
Such conclusions as may be drawn indicate that denationalization has improved the operating efficiency of the professional haulier. The trader and manufacturer. whether or not they run their own vehicles, have preferred to give an increasing volume of traffic to the independent carrier, but have not significantly increased the amount passed to B.R.S. They still find it convenient to have their own vehicles, even when they make less use of them.