THE FUTURE OF ROAD TRANSPORT.
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The Arguments Placed before Members of the Staff of the Great Western Railway Concerning Road Transport and its Relation to Rail Transport.
ATthe meeting in the General Meeting Room of the Great Western Railway at Paddington on Thursday last, Mr. E. S. Shrapnell-Smith, C.B.E.,
President of the Commercial Motor Users' Association, .delivered a lecture on the subject of the future of war "transport.
One may, perhaps, said the lecturer, open the subject with the confident assertion that the future of road transport is assured. If any lurking doubts remain, final proof is found in the concluding three paragraphs of the majority .report of the National Wages Board for the railways of this country (issued on December 9th last), the opening lines of 'which read
"The Board desire to add that they are unanimously of opinion that the rapid growth of road motor transport undoubtedly constitutes a serious menace to the railway industry."
It almost goes without saying that an industry which is so authoritatively recognized and gratuitously advertised as being a serious menace to the railways has clearly some. kind of a future before it.
There was in The Times 'of December 14th an interesting, if short, article dealing with "Agriculture, Roads and Horse Traffic." Here is an extrad from it:— " The horse has been proved cheaper than the motor for important classes of short-distance traffic in cities, and there are few signs of its being dispensed with as at least an auxiliary to mechanical methods on most farms. Thus, although motor traffic now commands as great an Indulgence from the public as railway traffic did 80 or 90 years ago, there is a perceptible increase of official recognition that roads must be made accessible to the hoof of the horse as well as to the' fubber tyre of the motorcar."
It calls for mention in passing that the horse only excels the motor for short-distance traffic where ruling gradients do not exceed 1 in 20, or where delays are exceptionally heavy, but it will come as some reward to those who have been identified with commercial motoring for many years to learn that they now enjoy the indulgence of the public. This status, which has been hardly won by merit and service combined, in fact provides to-day one of the guarantees for the future of road transport. The public not only wants it, but will not tolerate deprivation.
The propaganda paragraphs in the report of the National Wages (Railways) Board proceed thus:—
" The majority of road hauliers are not common carriers, are under no legal obligation to provide regular services, and are at large in the matter of the charges they make."
It is difficult to conceive the general application in practice of any other condition of affairs. The right of individual contract Must not be destroyed, although it may be regulated. Whilst the larger road-haulage people, who possess organization and resources, suffer greatly from the sporadic incursions of relatively small men, they see no likelihoodof a remedy in legislation of which one outcome would apparently be to impose upon the owner of every size of commercial motor the statutory obligation to accept and convey, for example, coal. This traffic is frequently taken by motor lorry in rural areas for the convenience of farmers and householders whose coal must otherwise remain at the railway siding. It is very doubtful that the approval of highway authorities will be obtainable for changes in the law which may force coal and mineral traffic on to the roads to any considerable extent for long-distance trips, or otherwise, than, as now, in completion of delivery to the buyer after siding-to-siding conveyance by rail.
As to charg.,,!s, if any railway goods experts can discover practicable niethods of enforcing classification and rate-scales upon all the one-man and other small owners who increasingly acquire their vehicles on the hire-purchase system, or of dealing effectively with the corresponding situation in respect of public-service passenger conveyance by road, they will earn the undying gratitude of the more stable motor hauliers and other proprietors, as well as, no doubt, that of their own general managers. The methods, whatever they may prove to be, if found, will have to command the support of the public. Charges by road are to-day controlled by the severe competition between large numbers of independent owners of vehicles. It is the same in America. A reviewer, in the course of an article entitled, "Railways versus Trucks," which appeared in the October, 1925, issue of The World's Work, reaches the following conclusion on this point:— " It is the lively competition of the truck operators among themselves, not the competition -of the railroads, which fixes the charge for motor transportation."
. The first paragraph of the three to which reference has been made eoncludes in . these words:— " They (read hauliers) are, therefore, in a position to select the traffic for which they cater, and to vary their charges to meet the circumstances of each particular case. On the other hand, the railway companies are common carriers and have no such freedom, their charges being subject to statutory restrictions."
It will be ehserved that there is no reference to exceptional rates, the number, extent and high total incidence of which will be well known to this gathering, and also, it is to be surmised, to numerous Members of Parliament and to any committee or tribunal which exercises judicial or quasi-judicial powers. It is of real importance, however, not to lose sight of the fact that neither the railway • man nor the road haulier is in a position to select. That function remains of necessity with the parties who, in the ordinary course of events, have the traffic to place. Again, the haulier by road does not select various special loads such £1s stern frames, rudders, propellers, rotors, boilers and tanks, which are outside the loading gauges of the railways, any more than he selects the haulage of threshing machines without which the British farmer must be paralyzed as a producer of cereals. It is usually due to his ability to do the job better, all considerations being taken into account, that the haulier by road is selected hY those who are perfectly free to choose the railway wfien and where it suits them to do so.
The second of these three propaganda paragraphs may now be quoted. It runs:—
" Under existing conditions road-transport undertakings contribute only a small portion of the cost of providing and maintaining the roads of which they have unrestricted use, and they are not subject to any legislative control similar to that imposed upon the railways." Owners of commercial motors do not themselves fix their contributions ; this has so far been done by Government Committees, upon which they have had but few seats. For some years now, in respect of their traffic on strong and well-made highways, their annual payments in such direct motor taxation, quite apart from amounts levied upon them half-yearly as local highway rates, have in numerous instances exceeded the total annual costs of the highways carrying their traffic. It is only on older and weaker roads, especially in some rural districts, that their propertions are at times low. Such discrepancies can, and should, be remedied. A possible Solution is that, where the local highway rate reaches 2s. or 2s. 3d. in the 1, any further expenditure should be a charge on the .Road Fund.
There is, no doubt, a case for a better method of allocation of the proceeds of direct motor taxation, and commercial motor owners are prepared to see the whole question of incidence referred to a Select Committee of both Houses of Parliament or to a Royal Commission. They have nothing to fear from impartial investigation and review, and they believe that certain anomalies and inequities might in the result be removed. They have neither desire nor occasion for any unfair advantage in relation to the railways.
It is, of course, a misstatement—an unintentional one, no doubt—to assert that motor owners have unrestricted use of the roads. They, in fact, have only limited and conditional rights of common user, whereas the railways (being concerned with their own estates and property) enjoy the right of exclusive user—also conditionally.
It is the last of the three paragraphs under reference which, by reason of its incomplete terms, may tend to convey impressions that are seriously misleading. It reads:— "The number of commercial motor vehicles is increasing rapidly, and, in consequence, the wear and teat upon the roads is greatly increased. The railway companies are called upon to contribute through local and other taxation towards the cost of maintaining roadways. The local rates paid by the companies for the year 1924 amounted to 17,826,583, or about 19 per cent. of their net revenue. The unfairness of this position is further emphasized by the fact that the railway companies are not permitted a free use of the roads. They are thus put in a position of assisting to subsidize a formidable and increasing competition, a state of affairs which ought not to be allowed to continue."
The arithmetical proposition covered by the first three lines may appear to some to be axiomatic, but experience proves that the cost attributable to added traffic is seldom as-much per unit as that arising from initial volumes and early increments. It is very frequently so little as to be untraceable.
As to the figures which follow, of the 17,826,583 which is quoted in respect of local authority rates paid in 1924by railway companies, not more than 18 per cent, at the very outside (say, a maximum of 11,410,000) was paid by all those companies for highway rates. If one adds, as a generous figure, a further 1240,000 as the maximum or direct taxation upon all railway-owned motor vehicles using the roads, which estimate is believed to be much on the high side, an aggregate annual sum of 11,650,000 will probably be above the actual joint total for the year 1925 by a safe margin.
It may be information to some that no category of ratepayers has, since the year 1913, been so favourably treated in the matter of local authority rates as have the railways. Furthermore, the railways enjoy a not inconsiderable annual subsidy from ratepayers as a whole, seeing that they pay no highway or other rates in thousands of parishes through which their lines do not pass, and in which they have no rateable property,
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but to, from and through which they derive much traffic by using the roads.
The aggregate railway revenues which are to-day dependent upon user of the highway are many times greater than the aggregate traffic revenues of all road hauliers and other commercial motor owners per se, and the railways are thus placed in an advantageous position largely at the cost of the general body of nonrailway ratepayers. These low payments by the railway companies in respect of highway facilities, which contributions approximate only lid, per ton of railborne traffic collected and/or delivered by road, regardless of distance, would appear to call for serious review by Parliament in the direction of upward revision.
Railway protagonists maintain that motor hauliers are given an unfair competitive advantage by reason of railway contributions in highway rates, but official figures and returns, it will be observed, do not support the contention. Also, it must be emphasized, road hauliers neither require nor seek any such preferential treatment.
The lecturer then went on to deal with the possibility of proposals for negotiation between railway and road interests, to discuss co-ordination and the apparently superior claims of co-operation, and remarked that much has been said and written in favour of both as abstract propositions, but only those whose duty it is to deal with transport from the inside can realize the difficulties which confront anybody who seeks to give effect to either of these ideals.
The lecturer was then responsible for the estimate of 1250,000,000 as representing the capital sum employed by owners of mechanical road transport in Great Britain, and that this total is growing at the rate of 120,000,000 a year, this apart from the capital employed on the manufacturing and supply sides of the motor industry.
The provision of alternative means of public transport may be likened to the existence side by side of gas-supply companies and electricity-supply companies, whilst the right of the consumer to use oil spirit or candles remains. It is impossible to imagine anything in the nature of a departure from that analogous precedent to win public acceptance. Private motorcars and motorcycles have probably been of greater effect in transferring passenger traffic from rail to road than have motor omnibuses and motor chars-k-bancs.
A gratifying new situation has asserted itself during 1925, and that is a downward turn in the course of the total cost of maintaining our highways. This statement is made on the authority of Sir Henry Maybury, who is so largely responsible for the adoption of more economical and durable systems of road construction and maintenance.
There is every reason for expecting that good and lasting results for lower costs per mile of highway will be progressively secured in the future. The mileage of waterbound roads, which are so wasteful of power and so costly to repair, will continue steadily to diminish.
An issue by the State of Road Bonds is not improbable. Anything between 50 and 200 millions of money might well be raised in that way, and the loan served by part of the proceeds of direct motor taxation: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has the matter under consideration. The main incentives to this course are stated to be the continuing public demand for better roads and bridges, taken in conjunction with the national necessity to provide additional useful work for the unemployed. It is new works, not maintenance, which is keeping total annual road costs above 140,000,000 a year.
Certain interests are moving for a variety of 'changes to be made in the scale of taxation applicable to commercial motors, and some of the suggestions which are being pressed upon Mr. Churchill are penal in their incidence. The good sense and impartiality of the Government and Members of the House of Commons can, however, be relied upon to prevent the exploitation of any one interest by any other.