Annual Conference Brighton 197
Page 36
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Quality and price vital
QUALITY IN TRANSPORT is as important as price, according to former Chartered Institute of Transport president Stephen Wheatcroft, who is now director of economic development with British Airways.
Road haulage was helped by its being a small-scale industry. RH/5:s member companies had an average of six vehicles each and could pay closer attention to a customer's detailed requirements than many larger-scale businesses could. But it dare not let its vigilance slip, he said.
Drivers' attitudes were important, and Mr Wheatcroft wondered whether these were always as correct as they might be. Training helps, but it must be undertaken very thoroughly and probably to a higher standard than at present. "We have to make everyone aware that transport is a service and that they are the service."
Mr Wheatcroft's line on industrial relations made an interesting comparison with director-general George Newman's address. Trade union leaders and members should abandon their "outdated nineteenth-century concept of solidarity". Solidarity itself could not be respected if customers suffered.
We should not forget that transport is a service industry. Service is its business and customers are our present and our future, concluded Mr Wheatcroft.