PROBLEMS OF THE HAULIER AND CARRIER.
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Some New Aspects of" The Commercial Motor" Tables of Running Costs and Different Ways of Using Them.
rpHE Tables of Operating Costs for all types of corn.1 mercial motor vehicle compiled by The Commercial Motor have now been in publication for nearly 20 years. In their present guise they are unique. No other tables approach them for accuracy, scope and ease of use and application. I am fairly safe, I think, in assuming that they are in the hands of every reader of these pages, but should I be wrong I hasten to remind those who are not in possession of a copy of them that one can be had free of all cost by direct application to the Editor. This is a fact which cannot be too widely known, and readers of The Commercial Motor will be doing a good turn to their own commercial-vehicleowning friends by introducing the tables to their notice.
Greatest Good of the Greatest Number.
Now, the tables have been designed to be of the greatest help to the greatest number. They give, in the first place, the cost of operation of nearly every type of commercial motor vehicle on the market. They give this information in a form as concise as possible, consistent with the need for readiness of reference and scope of application. In compiling them it has been borne in mind that the stumbling-block over which most users come to grief in assessing costs is the fact that those costs vary tremendously according to the weekly mileage, whether the actual assessment be per mile or per week. That stumbling-block has been almost entirely eliminated by computing the cost for, various weekly mileages per week from a minimum of 60 miles to a maximum of 1,000 miles (dependent upon the type of vehicle). The figures for electric vehicles, for example, are given for mileages from 60 to 400; those for steam vehicles up to 600; for the majority of petroldriven vehicles up to 800 and for passenger vehicles to 1,000. The gradation is in steps of from 20 to 100 miles per week, and the cost for intermediate mileages can either be averaged or calculated direct from the basic figures of the tables, which give in separate sections the running cost per mile and the standing charges per week, thus facilitating the making of such calculations.
The whole of this portion of the tables is of use to every reader of The Commercial Motor to every owner of a commercial motor vehicle, whatever its type, capacity or purpose.
Care for the Special Needs of the Haulier.
There is, however, a special class of users with whose interests The Commercial Motor has for
a corresponding number of years concerned itself very closely.
I refer to my own readers—those who make their living directly by means of commercial motor vehicles by contracting for haulage and cartage of other people's goods. To meet their particular needs a special and considerable portion of these tables is set apart. oaln this section are given hauliers' fair minimum charges for work done with everytype of commercial vehicle for the mileages set out in-the purely costs portion of the tables.
Limits of Accuracy and Application.
Now, the figures given are only accurate up to a certain point and are limited in their application accordingly. Obviously, they cannot be correct in every case. A moment's thought will suffice to convince the reader not only that it is unreasonable to .expect--strict accuracy but that such perfection is impossible. Let him recall from his own experience how the petrol consumption, which is one item only of running toSts, varies from time to time on his own vehicle, or let him compare it with that of a friend in the same line of business who has a machine similar in size, the same even in make and type. He will then see that if we were to publish figures strictly applicable in the One case they would he wrong in the other, and vice versa.
Actually, no attempt is made to make the tables definitely and positively apply to any given make or type of vehicle. What is done is to collect—and to keep on collectffig all the time—data relating to the cost of operation of all types of vehicle. The figures which are embodied in the tables are the result of arranging all these costs. If actual figures be ascertained they will probably be found to be a little over or a little under the results of the table in any particular example. Sometimes they are more in respect of some items of costs and less as regards others. But in the majority of cases the total of any actual costs relating to a wellfound and well-kept machine are remarkably close in their approximation to our printed figures.
Miles per Week and Miles per Year, or Miles per Day.
There is another thing, too, which must be kept in mind when using that part of the tables which gives the total operating costs, either per week or per mile, for given weekly mileages. The distances given as being covered per week are also supposed to be
averaged over a reasonably lengthy period of time. It is not safe to attempt to apply them week by week according to the mileage in each week, without due regard for what has been happening during the weeks before and what is likely, to happen in the weeks that are to come. If, for example, a haulier has for consideration a contract which calls for 300 miles with a 4-ton lorry in a week, then,' according to the tables, and assuming petrol cost to be is. 3d. per gallon, he shossid charge £20 2s. for that service. Out of that sum the actual cost of operation of his vehicle will absorb £14 25., leaving 30s. for what are variously called establishment charges or overhead costs and 14 10s. as profit ; but 'if in another week he has a contract which involves him covering 150 miles in three days, which, of course, is at the rate of 300 miles per week, and if he were to charge for that contract at the rate• of 300 miles per week—that is to say, at 1s. 5-id. a mile—then his charge would be £10 18s. 9d. Assuming that the lorry did not go out again that week, his actual cost would be one hundred and fifty times 6.23d., which is the running cost per mile of a vehicle that size, which is £3 18s., plus his total standing charges for the week, £6 6s. 6d., plus his establishment charges, £1 10s., a total of
£11 14s. 6d., so that really he would lose 15s. 9d. that week.
Whilst, however, it is important to call attention to the risks which the haulier runs in quoting direct from the tables without adequate consideration of the bearing which circumstanced outside the application of the tables may have on any particular case, it must at the same time be admitted that he has, as a rule, very little option in the matter. In the example just quoted it will probably be necessary to tender for that 150mile job at a 300-mile-per-week rate, because, if a higher price were demanded, some competitor in a position to fill out the balance of the week with other work would step in and get the job. This is a matter beyond the scope og any figures or statistics. It is up to the haulier himself to be sufficiently enterprising to find work to keep his vehicle running as many profit-earning miles per week as he possibly can.
A Ready Reckoner.
Having given that warning, I can now pass on to the particular little scheme which I had in mind when I set out to write this article, and that is to suggest a means whereby a man can carry in his mind approximate figures, by the aid of which he can in case of necessity quote offhand for any little job of work which may offer itself. There is, of course, no getting away from the fact that the price quoted should bear a definite relation to the weekly mileage, but if it once be admitted that the stress of competition forces u.s to B42
consider each day on its own, then it becomes convenient and 'practicable to reckon on daily mileage as a basis. All that the haulier needs to do, therefore, is to have two figures in mind for any particular lorry— the figure for the standing charges per day and the running costs per mile.
In the ordinary course the standing charges are taken to include licences. wages, rent and rates, insurance and interest, whilst the running costs cover fuel; lubricants, tyres, maintenance and depreciation. To make the matter siniple and yet to keep the figures sufficiently accurate for such an approximation as I have in mind, it is possible to consider everything but fuel to be a standing charge. Depreciation can be reckoned annually, as it hasto be in any case for purposes of. income tax. It is always possible to state an approximate. figure per year for maintenance. Most hauliers of experience know, or can ascertain by reference to their bills, how often in point of time they have to buy new tyres, and they are equally able to discover how much they really spend on lubricants in -the course Of an ordinary year's working. If the calculations be made , on that basis; there is only that widely known and appreciated factor, mileage per gallon of -petrol or c' ,t.
of coal or coke, to be considered as a variable factor depending on the mileage.
Quotations from Memory.
Let us see how this applies in the case of any one particular vehicle. For convenience I will continue to deal with the 4-ton lorry to which I have already made occasional references. Let us assume that a man owning such a lorry found that he was buying a new set of tyres every year. Let us take it that his depreciation was the equivalent of £100 per year and that maintenance cost htm about the same, and that be spends £40 a year on oils and greases. All these reduced to a daily charge amount in round figures to 1s. 10d. a day. The standing charges from the tables amount to 21.s. 2d. per day, so that the total standing charges on this new principle are 23s. a day. If we take it that he does six miles to the gallon on petrol at a shilling a gallon, his running costs are 2d. a mile or six miles for a shilling. He must add to the standing charge a figure of 5s. a day to cover establishment charges, and with those two figures-28s. per day and six miles for a shilling—we can at once approximate to the gross cost to the haulier himself of any contract involving a given number of miles per day. If, for example, he has the offer of a job which will take him a day and mean a 90-mile run: then his own cost will be 28s.. plus 90 divided by 6. which is 15s.—total, 43s. He must add to that the profit he wishes to make and
can then quote a price for the work. S.T.R.