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Page 190
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Cybernetic clearing house
by janus
NOBODY can accuse the port authorities of lack of courtesy towards hauliers. Time and again there have been complaints of the lack of facilities and especially of the inordinately long vehicle waiting time. Although the problem of turnround is not peculiar to the docks, the accusation is invariably that it is worse there than anywhere else.
Except on rare occasions, the reaction has been mild. The ports have admitted that there are difficulties for which they may be partly responsible. They have taken practical steps towards improvement, notably by a booking system for export traffic. In many cases the hauliers have welcomed the innovation and have subsequently praised it. Even when the opportunity has been neglected, the authorities have not criticized too harshly.
In London the dock problems are too great and too varied to admit of a single solution. More frequently than elsewhere hauliers have called for drastic action. A favourite suggestion has been the institution in the docks of shift working or even of working round the clock.
HOWEVER, now that double shifts have at last become more than a possibility with the implementation of Part II of the Devlin report, hauliers no longer seem to like the idea. Reasons for the change of opinion are not lacking. They are based largely on the present or threatened scarcity of drivers as a result of the introduction of the heavy goods vehicle driver's licence; and the curtailment of the productivity of existing drivers by the reduction in the permitted maximum hours of work.
Once again the port authorities are apparently being admirably patient. It may be that, sensing trouble to come, they cannot afford to alienate any possible ally. Whatever the motive, there is a willingness to see the haulier's point of view and there may be an active endeavour to help him. With so many exceptions already made to the standard rules for drivers' hours, further concessions to cover dock work would not be surprising, although it would not be easy to find a suitable definition that would shut out abuses.
IF it is accepted that the ports have had to put up with some strong criticism from hauliers, evidence of almost superhuman forbearance might be provided by the results of recent research carried out for the National Ports Council by the truculently named Elliott Automation Space and Advanced Military Systems. The original intention was to devise a scheme for the introduction of a computer-based information system for handling cargo in large ports.
Apparently the scheme was too ambitious to be carried out in one operation. It was decided to concentrate on one section. The area chosen—hauliers may have suspected it—was that covering vehicle booking schemes, vehicle loading and unloading resources, and what are described as "importer-haulier introductions". It is this last item that may give hauliers room for disquieting thought. They may accept without a qualm the value of a computer in running a booking scheme for thousands of lorries carrying a wide variety of import and export traffic. They will see that the scheme must be matched with a precise deployment of the facilities for handling the traffic so that vehicles that are booked in and arrive on time will be handled promptly. The computer that has carried out the first task may even be necessary to complete the second.
THE new report takes the matter further. Once booking schemes for both import and export carrying vehicles are in operation, it points out reasonably enough, "there will be information stored in the computer on the availability and destinations of unloaded export lorries". It follows again that an importer with a load to be collected from the docks "can be given a list of suitable hauliers expected to have lorries available at the requisite time". He can then make his own arrangements with "the haulier of his choice". This haulier must then, the report continues, make "the appointment with the booking system".
Without the aid of a computer, says the report, the service would prove too costly in manpower. An estimated financial cost of £10,000 for development and of £35,000 a year for operation is made for "import-haulier introductions" in a large port. As against this it is further estimated that the annual benefit would be £1,300,000.
In commenting on the report, Mr Morris Gifford, the council's director-general, has said that the benefits of the whole scheme would be shared between the port and its users, with a substantial portion going to the users, particularly hauliers. Under existing arrangements, he said, "lorries often have no return load".
ON this basis hauliers ought to welcome the council as disinterested benefactors. More than likely they will prove as ungrateful now as in the past. Too many of them have the firmly rooted notion that they do not need a computer to instruct them on the best way of getting return loads.
The estimated benefit of over f lin has no great precision since there is no indication of the size of the port on which it is based. Presumably, it is supposed that a proportion of the vehicles that now go away empty would under the scheme be satisfactorily loaded. If this is true, it must be an advantage from the point of view of the terminal. The haulier looks at his operations as a whole and not merely at the small section that falls within the dock area.
There may be many reasons why he does not want an import load. He may have another more suitable load waiting for him not far away. He may be a short-distance operator with his base only a few miles away and lucrative traffic waiting there for his vehicle. He may for other reasons be anxious to have the vehicle back without delay. The rate offered at the dockside may not be acceptable.
BEHIND such explanations and even excuses there may lie the unexpressed distrust of the computer, especially a computer controlled by a port authority. However well-intentioned the programme, it may have an unsuspected bias which results in the continual provision of the kind of answer that the authority may prefer to have. Rather late in the day it may be found not to be catering so well for some of the ancillary interests.
It may be reassuring to read that apparently all the computer would do is to effect an introduction between an importer and a haulier. The process may not end there. As more data accumulates, the cybernetic clearing house will imperceptibly acquire greater power to the point where the importer and especially the haulier will lose control over their own activities.
THE ancient warning against the people who bring unsolicited gifts may still apply. The importer-haulier introductions at an apparently insignificant cost are a by-prbduct of the earlier investigations. Hauliers might prefer the port authority to keep its computer to itself and let other people work out their own arrangements in however unscientific a manner.
The project is being taken seriously. Its first phase, to last six months, is supported financially by the Ministry of Transport. As it proceeds, reactions will be sought from interested parties, including potential users, such as hauliers, wharfingers and shippers. The council may be disappointed in the lack of warmth in the welcome.