THE HAULIERS' INQUIRE WITHIN.
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Further Consideration of the Winning Costs of a Fleet of 15 Vehicles. Comparison Between Those Costs and our Tabulated Averages.
IN DISCUSSING the running costs of the fleet of motor vehicles owned by the Excel Co. I have already dealt with the fallowing items: fuel, lubricants, tyres and depreciation. There is not much that need be said about insurance, except that the firm has effected, at good rates, which I may not disclose, insurance covering the whole fleet together. The licences for such a fleet have to be paid, as everyone should know, at retail rates. 1I.M. Gevernment does not make any reductions whatever for quantity, although it makes very coasiderable increases indeed for short-date licences. Rent and rates work" out at a flat rate of 4s. a week per vehicle. Interest on first cost needs no discussion whatever : it is almost as unalterable in its incidence as the cost of the licence.
A Way of Paying for Overtime.
In the matter of wages the firm has rather an interesting scheme. A standard rate of fifty-five shillings a week is in force for the drivers of all classes of vehicle. No overtime is paid, but every tinae a man leaves the.garar before six o'clock in the morning, every time, that is to say, he starts on his rounds before that hour, he receives an additional payment of eighteen pence. Every time he is at work beyerid five o'clock in the evening he receives a bonus of half 'a Crown, and .occasionally, if he has to work very late indeed, -he becomes the recipient of a second half-crown for that dav's work This system appears to be accepted by the drivers with every satisfaction, and it is convenient to the firm because it eliminates the need for precise calculation of overtime.
great Many things other thad the coat of the .o c c asional overhauls which a vehicle undergoes. It stands for the expenditure on supplies of all BO ets, and for running a n d occasional rep airs made necessary by wear and tear, as distinct from those Which afe due to accident a a d
are, therefore, presumed to be covered by insurance. The regular supplies, such as lamp oil, cleaning materials, odd sparking plugs, bolts, nuts, greasers, and all the other small items which are continuously being called for, even in connection with the best regulated fleets, are booked out from the stores and charged against the various vehicles. About that procedure there is nothing novel, nothing about which we need bother ourselves. On the question of repairs •generally, however, I was . astonished to discover that this flect—which, as I
• have pointed out, actually includes no fewer than 20 machines—is maintained, and maintained in such order as to allow its units to do, year in and year out, the weekly mileages which are indipated by the schedule which we published last week, by one man, one mechanic, .and the latter, if you please, has occasionally to do the work of a driver when emer-gency demands his service in that capacity. That this is so is surely a testimonial, if one is needed to-day, to the general all-round efficiency of the commercial . motor vehicle. Nor is it the fact, either, that this lack of mechanical assistance is compensated in other ways such as might occur to us. There is no splendid equipment of labour-saving machinery. The. mechanic cannot turn a handle or press a switch, and thus set an traition a couple or so of Robots to. do his running repairs. Re is, with the exception of the driver whose machine is down for attention, practicaliy unaided.
The Driver the Chief Unit in Maintenance.
It is not the case, either, that the saving on wages of garage staff is lost, and lost again, in expenditure on new vehicles. The fleet is not made up of coniparatively new machines, which are replaced at quite short intervals by others, to make up for rapid vvast. age, due to lack of attention in t h e garages. The contrary is the case. One of the Fords is no less than I5 years old, having been bought in 1909. One of
t h e Albions, bought secondhand and still going strong, had completed, at the time of my visit; :no fewer than 49,000 miles --some over that number, as a matter of fact, and will be, most probably, past the 50,000 mark by the time these words appear in
print. During the time occupied in compiling that very respectable score' of miles it has
not been Averhauled, although its present behaviour --in. regard to its appetite for petrol, for example— rather goes to show that an overhaul would do it good.
The economy in garage staff is made possible by two entirely differing circumstances, according to the vehicle concerned,' The Fords are kept in good order by'the adoption of tone method and the Albions as the result of another—the method of the manufacturers. To keep the Fords, a standardized fleet, in order, a, stock of completed units is kept in the garage ; engines and gear units, axles, and other necessary spare parts are always available, Whenever anything goes wrong with one of the Fords, it is brought into the garage and the complete unit changed, an operation which does not take long, because, from experience and 'long practice, the mechanic, aided by the driver, has acquired the knack, and has got together the fools, for its speedy accomplishment. With its new unit the vehicle is ready for work again, while the mechanic is able to discover what is the matter with the old one and „to repair it at his (comparative) leisure.
Utilizing a Maker's Service System.'
With the Albions the procedure is as precisely opposite to that outlined above as it could be. IN o spares at all are kept. Instead, entire reliance is placed on the service facilities afforded by the manufacturers. These have proved to be ample for the purpose. The procedure, according to Mr. Brister, is simplicity itself. 'Whenever trouble develops with one of the Albions, telephonic communication is established with the Albion Co.'s service station. A convenient time for taking the lorry in is agreed, and the work is done overnight, so that the vehicle hardly 'misses an hour of ifs work. This has been the invariable result, and for this reason, if for no other, Albions are the favoured chassis for heavy work in the minds of the Excel Co.
It is unfortunate that the precise details of the repair costs are not available for purposes of comparison. It is clear that they must be low, and comparison would therefore' be the more interesting. ,None of the items, as a matter of fact, affords us much opportunity for comparison with our average results except fuel. The flat-rate scheme for oils and tyres robs us of any real chance there, since it is impossible logically to compare tyre costs, which are presumed to be the same for 30-cwt. lorries anEt two-tonners.as they are for Fords, of both the recegrimed capacities of that chassis. Maintenance, as have already pointed out, we cannot discuss, and the same. difficulty arises in connection with depreciation as with tyres, since a flat rate is applied, with the
result that the figure is high for the Fords and low for the Albions. Wages, if we remember the bonus system, are about the same ; rents are low, as also is insurance. On the whole, therefore, we "might expect to rued that, by comparison with our average figures, the cost of the Fords would be high and that of the Albions low. Before making that comparieon of the total costs, however, I must compare the fuel consumptions. Beginning with the smallest size, the standard Ford vans, I note that these are on house-to-house delivery Work, so that their consumption may be expected to be on the high side, which it is. Our average for this type and size of vehicle is 20 m.p.g. The two which are run by the Excel Co. do 19.3 m.p.g. and 17.3 m.p.g. respectively, giving an average of 18.4 m.p.g.
The Ford tonners vary very considerably in their consumptions, and the variation does not always follow the course which we might be led to expect from the knowledge we have of the conditions, which only vary as regards the weekly mileage, for, while it is true that the Ford which has the least mileage to its credit—for example, doing only 232 miles per week-has also the highest consumption of fuel per mile—namely, one gallon per 11.6 miles—and that the ene which does the biggest mileage—namely, 471—has the lowest consumption, one gallon per 16.7 miles, yet the results in two other cases quite contradict the usual assumption that, other things being equal, the general rate of consumption will vary inversely as the weekly mileage. One machine, which does 441 miles per week, consumes a gallon per 13 miles, while another, doing but 392 miles, covers 16.3 miles to the gallon. The average consumption for, all the Ford banners is, however, slightly over 14 miles to the gallon, which shows an improvement, upon our average figure of 134.
The 30-cwt. Albions average 12.7 miles to the gallon as against our figure of 11. The 2-ton Albions have to be judged entirely by one of their number. That which is only doing 8 miles per gallon is the one which has run 50,000 miles since its last overhaul, so that it would not be fair to take its consumption into account for purposes of comparison. The other, with its 11.3 m.p.g., is also better than average. On the whole, therefore, it may be said that the fuel consumptions of these vehicles are good. That they should be better than our average figures was to be expected, if only for the reason that the week during which the results were achieved was in the Summer when conditions are favourable. The .point to fie borne in mind, however, next week, when comparing total costs, is that they should show an improvement on our figures, since the fuel consumptions are so favourable. . THE SKOTCH.