THE PLACE OF MECHANICAL TRANSPORT.
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• A Clear Statement of the Position of Road Transport in Relation to Local Taxation, to Housing Schemes and to the General Volume of Traffic Passing.
EFORE members of the Commercial Motor Users Association, at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, on Tuesday last, Mr. E. S. ShrapnellSmith, C.B.E., M.Inst.T., president and chairman. of the National Council, gave an address upon the question of the place cf mechanical transport. He chose the following heads of the subject as being of outstanding topical interest : (1) Highway costs and contributions ; (2) railways and local authority rates ; (3) housing and convenient public service ; (4) relief of unemployment ; (5) vehicle lighting and unlighted obstructions ; (6) alternative transport facilities for traders.
Direct motor taxes provided 1.9 per cent. in the year 1912 and 2.8 per cent. in the year 1913 of the all-in costs of the highways, including bridges and ferries and also cleansing and scavenging of highways. In each of the years 1923 and 1924 the. proportion of the total cost provided by direct motor taxes was no less than 27 per cent. To quote the actual figures, and taking two years for comparison, in the year 1912 the aggregate cost of the highways was £14,595,661; in the year 1924 it was £46,924,229. Revenue from direct motor taxes in the two years was : 1912, £270,661; 1924, £12,708.957. whilst the payments into the Road Fund increased this latter figure by some £1,500.000. The revenue from local rates increased from £14,325.000 to £30,050,000.
Mr. Shrapnell-Smith went on to show that the overall increase of cost of highway maintenance is but little more than in ratio with the increased cost of labour and materials. He pointed out the need for a regularized basis of contribution towards the costs from the national Exchequer.
The Hollow Cry of the Railways.
With regard to the outcry from railway company sources about increase of local authority rates upon the railways and the unfairness of highway rate incidence, he showed that, whereas the ratio of increased payments for all local rates from the railways has been 100 to 168 (comparing the year 1912-1913 with the year 1923-1924), the contribution of non-railway ratepayers had risen in the proportion of 100 to 234. Whereas railway contributions to local rates have gone up by, roughly, 31 millions a year, those of non-railway ratepayers had risen by 00 millions a year. Dealing with the apportionment of (1) amounts levied for highway rates and (2) motor taxes, the speaker was able to show that, whereas all the railway companies paid considerably less than 2 millions a year, their portion having only increased in the ratio of 100 to 177, the contributions from non-railway sources had risen to over 41 millions, the ratio having risen from 100 to 801, or three times the amount. Were it not for the public roads of the country, moreover, to which the railway companies are thus shown to make most inadequate contribution, the business of the railway undertakings must of necessity be restricted, whilst It is worthy of record that the tonnage of roadstone passing over the railways, apart from that of any other materials and supplies, has grown from 7.397,500 tons in the year 1920 to 12,116,694 tons in the year 1924, so that it is clear from these totals that there is tangible direct compensation to the railway companies, for the profits on this roadstone traffic must largely offset the total payment of the railways towards public highways.
Assured Transport Essential to Housing Schemes.
Housing accommodation without assured transport facilities is useless. Fewer than one in three of post-war housing schemes have been developed on sites which are accessible by railway or tramway to a desirable extent, and the tendency to-day Is to rely more and more upon motorbuses, which offer the most elastic and most economical form of public service, provided they are given a fair opportunity to take passengers to and from the shopping centres of neighbouring towns and cities.
The speaker dealt with the questionof protection of tramways, but asked that it should not be achieved at the sacrifice of the public interest as a whole.
He laid emphasis upon the correlated effects upon land and property values which occur from the establishment of regular motorbus services in rural areas, showing that, whilst there may be isolated cases of damage, there are thousands of cases of enhancement, it being no uncommon thing for land values to go up 500 or 600 per cent, where a bus route exists.
With regard to the relief of unemployment, he showed that there are already more wage-earners employed in road motor transport than on all the railways of the country, this growth being almost • entirely due to the creation of new work, and not to transferences of traffic from rail to road. The latest official returns show that the railway companies employ 701,000 people in the 44 manual and clerical grades of workers on their pay-rolls, these figures applying to England, Scotland and Wales. The corresponding figure for all comparable grades of non-railway road mechanical transport, both goods and hackneys, is approximately 810,000. The average labour required and, in fact, utilized is 2.8 men per vehicle licensed. No industry has more consistently added to its total employment • since the war than that of road transport.
Mr. Shrapnell-Smith went very carefully into the question of the complaints and protests against excessive lighting and dazzle from headlamps of private motorcars, and said that adequate and suitable lighting is essential, but excessive lighting is an instance of gross selfishness. He 'dealt with the desiderata, and with the tests that have been carried out, and suggested that there are urgent grounds in the public interest for taking steps ta enforce the adoption of headlamps which shall conform, at least within some declared margin of tolerance, to the official reeommendation of a mean range of forward illumination of 225 ft.
He also dealt with the matter of unlighted obstructions upon the road, and particularly with the level-crossing gates on railways which were constructed and opened prior to 1863, there being no legal obligation upon the rallways to light these old gates. He said that the Commercial Motor Users Association, the Royal Automobile Club ar,d the Home Office Conference of Chief Constables are now engaged upon the consideration of this anachronistic and anomalous legal situation.
The speaker asserted that manufacturers and traders remain staunch allies of mechanical transport. There has, of course, been a falling off in long-distance goods haulage by road since 1920, but this was not unexpected, because after the Armistice the railway companies were unable to deal well with traders' goods, and this gave an exceptional stimulus for a few years to long-distance traffic by road, which had attained abnormal dimensions five years ago, hut the bottom was reached. on the road transport side, as regards volume of traffic, some 2i years ago.
Coal traffic has never passed by road (to the exclusion of rail conveyance) to more than a negligible extent, and the railways have no genuine grounds for grumbles in other categories covering general merchandise and Minerals.
He ascribed the marked revulsion of feeling in favour of road transport, reported from many areas, to the non-appearance of genuine competition between the railway groups and to the determination of producers, merchants and shippers to retain at their disposal a non-railway method of transport as an alternative. At the same time, many traders are prone to overlook the fact that for distances up to at least 50 miles transport by road, whilst very much cheaper, is the equal, in time occupied from door to door, to the truck attached, at high rates, to a passenger train.