LAs divided over TMLs
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• When the Licensing Authorities met the Transport Managers' Licence Committee, the LAs proved to have divided views about managers' licensing. This was revealed by Mr George Wilmot, Senior Lecturer in Transport Studies, University of London, and a member of the TML Committee, when he gave the opening lecture last week in a University extension course organized in conjunction with the Transport Studies Society.
Mr Wilmot was speaking on the policy ideas represented in the Transport Act 1968 and those likely to influence transport in the near future. The TSS short course continues, with different speakers, on Wednesday of each week until March 10.
Surveying the TML situation, Mr Wilmot said the official committee's recommendations revealed, a complete turnabout—from statutory licensing initially to its latest proposals for a voluntary scheme. The latest recommendations to the Minister envisaged four voluntary grades: a basic level with a simple examination (if any); a supervisory grade at about RSA diploma level; a transport manager grade, with a fairly stiff test and a status equivalent to associate membership of a professional institute; and a senior grade of high status, for people of, say, graduate ability.
Mr Wilmot said he thought there was now a chance of a move towards greater professionalism in road transport so long as a start was made quickly; he thought it right that January 1 1972 should be set as a target date. In his view, if nothing worthwhile had been achieved within about three years, the Minister should be advised to introduce the original TML legislation.
The speaker said that he had joined the TML committee in 1968 full of enthusiasm for this great opportunity; he had not realized that a committee could be a cul-de-sac into which ideas were lured and then buried.
In reviewing the effects of the 1968 Act, Mr Wilmot opened by remarking that on the night of November 30 1970 there had been no ritual dancing, no burning of old A, B and C licences—in fact no outbreaks of revelry or protest; yet when the Geddes Committee had a few years earlier suggested that carriers' licensing should go, having outlived its usefulness, there had been a vast storm of protest.
He felt that operators had not yet 'appreciated the much greater powers which traffic examiners now had, or the true severity of 0 licensing. Many shaky operators ought to be shaking in their shoes at the prospect of having to renew their licences—which would be a much tougher process than obtaining the original grant.
One outcome of the Act had been a great new interest in costing. Ten years ago Peter Drucker, the noted management specialist, had said that the last great frontier of costing to be crossed lay in transport. The Transport Act had forced the pace, especially in own-account fleets, thus starting to close the gap which lay between the costing sophistication at the production end and at the marketing end.
While there had been many suggestions that own-account operators were unlikely to enter hire-and-reward haulage, Mr Wilmot was convinced that former C-licensees would slowly but steadily draw together to negotiate dovetailed operations which would help to iron out their traffic peaks and give better utilization of vehicles. There was plenty of ground for levelling out both seasonal and diurnal peaks. He knew of present negotiations, for example, between a soft drinks firm and one making canned goods including soups, where the summer and winter peaks could be shared. There was also the case of newspaper delivery vans being employed during normally idle hours to carry other goods.
This broadening of the C-licensee's activities reflected the identical legal status which hauliers and own-account operators now enjoyed. Mr Wilmot wondered whether separate trade associations were really necessary and thought that the RHA and FTA tended to play up their roles, rather as a bit of politics.
Will the small haulier go to the wall? The speaker thought it unlikely. He had-just beerr400king through copies of Commercial Motor for 1930-32 and was amused to see that the 1933 Act, introducing licensing of carriers, was then foreseen as the end of the small operator. The small haulier, he thought, was very much like the little shop on the corner, always open for business. Many hauliers were driven by a simple desire to be their own boss but had no ambition to do more than make a modest living. Even they, he thought, would find the tough new maintenance and operating standards hard to survive without some sort of grouping of facilities.
Turning to quantity licensing, now lying dormant on the Statute Book, Mr Wilmot said he believed railwaymen had really been shivering in their shoes in case special authorizations were introduced. The system would have put a terrible onus on the railways to provide the services with the speed, cheapness and reliability pledged to the LA when obtaining hAherto roadborne traffic.
He thought BR would in fact seldom have used their powers openly but would have relied upon special authorizations as a convenient lever to persuade customers to put traffic—especially bulk—on to rail.
The real effect of all the talk and legislation on the subject had been to encourage customers and hauliers alike to take a new look at railway services, which had possibly brought some new tonnage to the railways.
Mr Wilmot was adamant that BR was not getting its fair share on the Freightliner front, particularly in the sense that the State-owned parcels companies were passing much trunk traffic by road. But, in the discussion which followed, an NCL employee said that smalls traffic had to be in at least 5-ton lots to make economic use of a rail container at BR rates. Some trunk traffic had been put back on to road because Freightliner services to one or two destinations had been curtailed. All decisions about road /rail traffic were in any case discussed between the parties and looked at by the joint parcels organization.