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Hopes and fears
Page 85
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CHAIRMAN for the first afternoon session was Mr John Mather, managing director of Southern BRS Ltd. who commented that the Shell film Long Haul which delegates were shown had been both cheering and daunting. It was comforting to know that European hauliers had problems similar to our own, and to see the opportunities on the Continent. But the sheer size of the market created some apprehension and so did the expertise of the Dutch, who already had two-fifths of all the road haulage in the Common Market. "Goodness knows what will happen if they come over to Britain", he commented. He was also "scared stiff" of all the Continental /EEC rules and regulations, and reminded delegates that we would be bound by European transport law in our own domestic haulage.
Mr Mather introduced Mr Herbert Dress, general manager of Pickfords in Germany, whose paper "Road transport operation on the Continent" (CM last week) set out the conditions under which German hauliers operated — including a 10-year wait for a trunk haulage licence. The market value for a long-distance licence was, he said, around £6000. plus the cost of the vehicle. But they were hoping for a more liberal licensing position from January next year.
Answering a question about how capacity control was actually applied, he explained that a man applying for permission to run between, say, Diisseldorf and Munich might be told that there were no licences vacant on this route but that there were vacancies on other routes — for which he still might have to wait 10 years. The object of the system, said Mr Bress, was to avoid 100 vehicles competing on one route for work which could be done by 20.
When questioned by Mr R. A. Turner, chief engineer of the Calor Group Ltd, on the ability of the German police to carry out technical checks on vehicles, as mentioned in the paper, Mr Dress said that the men on road transport enforcement were technically qualified and well equipped — for instance with mobile vehicle weighers and means for interpreting tachograph discs. An official -sitting in a Microbus alongside the
checkpoint" was an expert in checking drivers transport documents.
Mr. W. T. A. Edwards, of the Post Office, asked whether the enlargement of the Common Market would alter the weak transport trade union situation in Germany, bearing in mind the TGWU's new opportunities when we joined the EEC. Looking at Mr Alex Kitson, who was sitting in the front row of the conference hall, Herr Bress confessed: "We are a little concerned"; but having now met Mr Kitson he was personally not too pessimistic.
Mr Lionel Tuson, group transport manager of Roneo-Vickers Ltd. asked if the difference between the freight rates quoted in the written paper and those given in the presentation indicated the German rate of inflation. Herr Bress explained that the figures in the paper were from an earlier period, but Germany was certainly now experiencing a rapid rate of inflation.
Asked about some operating points shown in the film, he said that radio control was now the "in" thing, especially in certain haulage sectors. Customers were also prepared to pay for service, and many operators now offered round-the-clock facilities for urgent parcels, with operatives on telephone standby all night.
It was not unknown, said Herr Bress, for road transport operators to collect urgent parcels and forward them as air freight, for collection at the other end by another "smallscarrier.