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International hauliers get a fighting message

27th June 1975, Page 36
27th June 1975
Page 36
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Page 36, 27th June 1975 — International hauliers get a fighting message
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Speakers at a Daimler-Benz seminar in Eastbourne tell how to mprove transport performance and save fuel, warn about aolitical pressures and railway protectionism, and advocate

nore and better training by CM reporter .0AD haulage must exploit its dvantages over "cumbersome" .vals but may have to be pre ared to defend its position gains t unilateral regulations, aid Mr H-..1 Schultz-Hector, ead of foreign sales product romotion, Daimler-Benz AG, 1st week.

He was introducing the cornany's third international 'ansport seminar—held this me in Eastbourne and ttended by 230 delegates from lestern Europe and from as ataway as South Africa— rid the eight papers by inter ational speakers provided )me cogent examples of what e meant, as well as one or vo rather abstract and theorecal contributions.

One of the themes repeated iroughout the seminar was le need for more and better .aining for transport men, and was neatly summed up in transport film (made by Iercedes-Benz, France) which ttroduced the first of the two ays' business sessions : Training will ensure the surival of road haulage by imroving the quality of what oes into it."

As detailed in a news story ;ee page 5), EEC policies rid regulations came in for -iticism by both speakers and ?legates, and the 450km daily riving limit was roundly conemned.

The key place of marketing ad market research was high ghted by Sir Daniel Pettit and German haulage operator in teir respective papers; there -as evidence of how much tore economical of precious tel 52-ton and other road out :s could be, and how freer affic flow — for example irough by-pass developments -was a great fuel saver, and tere were several warnings tat in becoming better trained, tore professional and more )phisticated, road haulage Ltist guard against losing its essential flexibility and its basic objective of providing best service at lowest cost.

The conference theme was road haulage prospects in the foreseeable future, and some very topical subjects made the running during the discussions.

In the first session the secretary-general of the International Road Transport Union (IRU), Mr Pieter Groenendijk, said that IRU was working out a strategy for fuel, on the hypothesis that oil prices would rise in relation to the effects of cost inflation at every stage of oil production and distribution.

Mr Groenendijk said the EEC hours laws had been unevenly implemented and enforced because they were unrealistic and inflexible. He was loudly applauded later when he declared: "If the eight-hour driving limit is in force there is no need for a distance limit. The 450km rule should be eliminated."

The vehicle weights and dimensions deadlock needed breaking; there was no hope now of a 13-tonne axle limit but he hoped the three new EEC members would accept 11 tonnes.

Presenting a paper on the position of road transport in society, Dr Henrik Noortman, director of the Dutch Institute of Transport and of the Economic Bureau for Road and Water Transport, said that in an economic as well as a transport sense, the world had passed the point of no return. "It does not make any sense to dream about a beautiful past . . ." The way forward had to be different, and economic and transport objectives had to be set if we were to have control over the sort of different future there was going to be. Unfortunately there was little knowledge about the way in which economic development could be changed by positive action.

However, in the highly developed economies of Western Europe it was no longer pos sible to treat transport as a separate entity; transport was now an integral part of the economic process.

Asked by a German delegate how he saw future economic growth — which would be zero in West Germany this year, with road haulage down by 10 per cent in volume on last year — Dr Noortman said he thought one fundamental factor would be the transfer of much industrial activity from developed to underdeveloped countries. This would, over perhaps the next 15 years, reduce total transport activity in the developed countries.

Lorry priority

Sir Daniel Pettit created something of a stir when (as reported in the news pages of this issue) he argued that priority over cars must be given to lorries on legitimate delivery operations; and he suggested several ways in which cars might be restricted. Whereas there were public transport substitutes for the car there was no substitute for the lorry. Sir Daniel showed that parcels and small freight in the UK moved between 90,000 factories, 20,000 wholesalers, 488,000 shops, 90,000 service outlets, 46,000 schools and 18m households.

His main theme was that marketing had transformed the distribution of goods — not only geographically but in timing, urgency, packaging and administration. The manufacturer, keying everything to marketing, expected his transport services to take account of, and provide for, these prerequisites for profit and success. The haulier had increasingly to know what the manufacturer's plans and objectives were, to offer him a total service.

There was, said Sir Daniel, no point in planners in corn-. merce or Government deciding that society needed so much rail transport and so much road transport; each mode had to adapt to the real and changing needs of industry and those who failed to adapt would go to the wall.

The very fact that the lorry had to find its •way into every corner of all countries was the main reason why it had been singled out for environmental attack. The industry's answer must be to explain the essential nature of the lorry's work; people seemed not to associate the well-filled shelves of the local supermarket with the regular deliveries that lorries made to the urban area.

The need for hauliers to keep a constant watch on the whole of the transport market and especially the sector in which they were particularly involved was emphasised in a paper by a German haulier, Mr Achim Denkhaus, of Braubach. It was important, he said, that these sections of the market were watched closely and systematically.

Mr Denkhaus explained that his company's 84 owned vehicles and 48 on permanent contract were distributed through eight depots; four of these depots were in the Koblenz area, where each of them offered only a single specific form of transport.

While his company's transport and forwarding services were concentrated on West German traffic, for the past three years it had had considerable success in developing international services. He said : "I do not consider I am either purely a transport operator or solely a forwarding agent. I am more inclined to regard the service my firm offers as a connecting link between producer and purchaser." Mr Denkhaus felt that West Germany's transport laws were never tailored to suit the market demands, but rather the opposite, and he saw the dangers of a similar situation evolving at EEC policy level.

Like Sir Daniel, he was insistent that market-orientated planning of the finri's work was indispensable. He and his employees had worked out marketing, management, planning, control and assessment policies which were translated into annual business plans. Any deviations from plan or budget were quickly and thoroughly investigated.

The speaker was quite frank about a well-informed haulier's ability to manipulate the market. "The more information you have on the market and the less you can assume, the customer to have, the simpler it will be, and the more successful, to apply ad hoc sales measures. You will succeed in splitting up the market into sections and in influencing these selectively."

Mr Denkhaus felt that specialisation on certain sectors of the market was one of the great opportunities for the future of private hauliers. Large profits were not to be made in future by attempts simply to accumulate capital; ingenuity, adaptability and conviction were needed, with the ability to offer an integrated "package" to individual customers.

The liberal approach

EEC transport policy came in for a hammering from Professor Dr Gerd Aberle, of Justus Leibig University, Giessen.

Prof Aberle said that the few common regulations implemented to date had often proved to be too abstract and passed in too much of a hurry to be capable of proper application.

The private haulage industry had proved especially difficult for the EEC to organise, and he ascribed this to protection policies for state railways. In countries where there had been the most intensive government intervention in the performance and cost structure of freight haulage, and in the fixing of prices, the protection of the railways was a dominating force, he said. The versatility of the truck and the importance of its particular qualities to consignors had been underestimated.

The permanent protection of the railways through artificial restriction of freight haulage was not possible. The system of quotas should be replaced by a progressive switch to operators' licences (like those in Britain) which gave the operator the right to employ trucks according to his own judgment. The subjective requirements for acquiring such licences should be uniformly laid down in all countries and should be set at a high level. He thought it might be a good idea to work towards a system in which it was compulsory for haulage applicants to prove a certain ratio between capital and turnover.

Advocating a free price structure and a more open market, Dr Aberle said the best way to achieve an adaptable transport system under a Common Market transport policy was to base it on efficient competition.

Every intervention which distorted competitive conditions in favour of one transport mode was a deviation from the best possible use of national labour, which, in turn, meant a cc siderable loss of general ecor mic wealth.

Commenting on the lati EEC Commission policy p: posal, Dr Aberle said the r merous objections which h already been made by soi governments and some natio] transport associations mez that any progress on it woi be very slow.

Equipped for the job

Speakers from Britain a: France spoke of the need more and better education training facilities in transpc M. Claude Leblanc, a meml of the haulage liaison comn tee of the EEC and of a wo: ing party of the Frer National Road Transport Fe ration, said the surest way operators to adapt thesel. and evade ruinous competit was to provide them with least a minimum knowle( (for example, by statutory quirements) which could• gradually extended later 0: After reviewing the needs of Lnsport education, M. Leblanc id that this would now have evolve in a way which took count of such factors as the pgressive introduction of a market economy and the ed for saving energy and w materials.

While transport training eded to improve, however, he Lrned against excessive conatration and over-formalisan which might jeopardise • i flexibility and immediacy Lich were the essential qualis of road haulage.

M. Leblanc felt that future Lining needed to deal in detail th commercial matters, since the moment they were the :ak point of road transport. )fessional education of road nsport managers and execues was absolutely essential the requirements of custows were to be met more .isfactorily. In France, he d, the financing of staff ining in transport was done .ough a small national tax commercial vehicles at the le of licensing. This gave :ensive financial support to training organisations, but State retained control of financial management. danagement training was : subject covered by Mr GorIL E. Beard, principal of the tish Transport Staff College.

Beard explained that neving maximum haulage tput at minimum cost was nparatively simple for an ner-driver with common ise and stamina but once a 3iness expanded beyond this ge the need for stamina wed from the body to the Lin, and this was where traincame in.

le described a case study a 32-year old transport man taking the Staff College J.-career course of three riths and said that one of lessons of this type of irse was that line managers re comparatively ignorant the "language of business," which he meant the convennal terms and methods used accounting.

It was also clear that too iny managers were allowed go on doing a responsible job a rapidly changing environ:nt without being given any LI opportunity to acquire new as or learn skills, particuly financial ones, which re required in making deci Mr Beard said he realised it it was not easy for small ns to release mew for train ing but when a man went on a course there were really three people being trained — the man himself, the person doing his job during his absence, and his boss when he got back.

Surveying some of the British training and education courses, Mr Beard said that the NFC management development programme had recently cut its operating period from 18 months to one year but the Corporation insisted that an important ingredient was the control by a very senior man who could insist on continued attendance when otherwise business might divert a student from the programme.

The fuel-economy possibilities in long-distance commercial vehicle operation with road trains or articulated vehicles were examined by Dr Ing Paul Strifler, commercial vehicles development division, DaimlerBenz AG.

Dr Strifler emphasised that the diesel engine still stood out from all other road motive power units for its economy, though even here the total efficiency in the entire "chain" from energy production to conversion into driving energy was at best about 30 per cent. The losses involved in producing and distributing diesel fuel constituted nearly 10 per cent of the energy potential of crude.

To improve economy most effectively one needed to know where the fuel energy was mainly used, said Dr Strifier. Rolling resistance was dependent upon vehicle weight, road condition and tyre pressures and in the case of large trucktrailer combinations it usually provided greater resistance than the aerodynamic drag. At 80kph (50mph) the aerodynamic drag was only about half as much as the rolling resistance.

However, a large part of driving was affected by other road users, hills, bends, and urban traffic conditions so that in general the largest part of the fuel was used not to overcome roiling resistance or drag but for acceleration or hill climbing.

Dr Strifler emphasised that, for economy, it was very important to select axle ratios and gear ratios which really suited the terrain over which a vehicle would mainly be used. For example, to gear a vehicle to run on flat main roads at 80kph (50mph) would require it to have a maximum speed capability of 100kph (62 mph) but this might well be a poor economy solution since the driver would frequently be forced to use a lower gear — especially on roads with lower speed limits. He suggested that an increase in speed limits on well-developed non-motorway roads would enable commer cial vehicles to be designed which would show significant fuel savings overall.

It could, he said, be a false economy for a driver to be guided solely by fuel consumption considerations — f o r example by cutting 20 per cent off his normal speeds. This might reduce fuel consumption by 5 to 6 per cent but it was not an economy if it meant that journey time was so extended that extra vehicles had to be employed to carry out the same work.

One of the most essential consumption-reducing mea sures was to improve traffic flow, for instance, by bypasses. Also, traffic lights and other intersection delays could result in a 40 per cent increase in consumption compared with a hindrance-free journey.

Increasing tyre pressures could make a sizeable contri bution to mpg, but hard tyres affected vehicle and road life, and any move in this direction needed to be accompanied by softer springing.

A reduction in energy consumption of between 7 and 14 per cent would be possible if truck trailer combination weights were raised to, say, 52 tons. Even a move from 38 tons to 44 tons would more than compensate.

On the question of converting vehicles to use other fuels Dr Strifler said this almost always meant a drop in efficiency. Other industries used a far higher proportion of mineral fuels than road transport and could much more easily be switched to different fuels.


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