Economy carrot or stick?

13th July 1979, Page 88

13th July 1979

Page 88

Page 88, 13th July 1979 — Economy carrot or stick?

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SO THE FUEL CRISIS has at last hit a serious all time high. Many lorry drivers are having to scout round for fuel which they might find in batches of 5 or 10 gallons, and then at exorbitant prices. Some stations were known to be charging Cl .15 per gallon before the budget.

When one calculates the cost of lost time searching for fuel and then adds the overcharge rate, it does not take a mathematical genius to sum up very quickly that either rates are going up very sharply or a lot of smaller operators will be closing down.

Load factors must now rate high on our priority list. No longer can fuel be sacrificed on the altar of convenience. Yesterday's needs were often to take half a load to a destination which was en route or close to another destination due to be served with yet another halfload tomorrow.

Today's fuel saving requirements demand that we re schedule, so that both half-loads go on the same journey. Empty running must be drastically reduced even it it means cutting some of the convenience factors from our activities.

In a great many instances, still too much emphasis is placed on how much money is spent rather than how much is earned. Take the instance when a driver could stay over and load back home the next day, but is routed back empty to save subsistence.

Perhaps we will need to have some centralised clearing-house type of organisation to maximise laden running and cut out the appalling waste of fuel caused by the low national average load factor of 53 per cent.

Of course, much of the ownaccount traffic would be hard pushed to produce a better than 50 per cent load factor because of the nature of its business. Even in this sector though, there is surely terrific scope for pooling traffic in order to avoid company A taking, say, a load of beer from Burton to London and passing a vehicle from company B taking a load of beer from London to Burton, and then both vehicles returning home empty. It never made sense, even when fuel was supposedly plentiful. Now fuel is scarce and expensive, and likely to become even more scarce and expensive, it is downright stupidity and almost critical.

If vehicles so employed returned, say, 6.5 mpg laden and 9mpg unladen and did a like exercise over a journey of 100 miles, the fuel saving would be a staggering 36 per cent. There is little else one could contemplate doing that would contribute such a vast saving in fuel.

I know there would be other problems and costs. But we must begin to recognise that however much we are prepared to spend, it will do us no good at all if fuel is not available to power our vehicles. The haulage sector of industry owes such frugality to the nation as a whole as a contribution to the conservation of energy.

The recent IRTE Conference at Solihull was largely given over to the energy crisis. From a group of American haulage men, whose sessions were chaired by J. C. Paterson of Ryder fame, we were treated to the highly professionalised transport scene. I have always favoured a carrot rather than a stick and it seems that in the States they also prefer the carrot, but revert to the stick if the carrot does not get the required result.

Listening to some of the presentations, I wondered if I had overlooked a few of my many years and that we were already into 1984. Nevertheless, much of the information dished out confirmed what we, of this (according to the Yanks) backward transport nation, already know. Smooth bodywork, synthetic lubricants, thermo fans and radiator shutters, air deflectors and radial tyres will together save something in the region of 19 per cent of our current consumption, but those under-inflated tyres could cost us an extra 10 per cent.

Ypt strangely to me, no delegate asked questions about the amount of water pushed around by our vehicles on the 60 of each 100 days on which we have rain, and neither was this subject touched upon by those representing TR RL.

One American gentleman, whose name should have been Robert Hope, made some astonishing statements about his operations. It would seem that his poor driving staff complete a seven-day journey of 7,300 miles (by my calculator 1042 per day) but if they exceed the 55 mph speed limit they get heavily fined or even sacked.

Thinking that I might be able to average around 40 mph at 55 maximum, I calculate that the Yanks are indeed what they have always told us they are, Supermen. For, while we in the UK are deemed highly dangerous if we stay behind the wheel for a total of eight hours out of 24, these fine chaps somehow manage 26 per day for seven days at a stretch.

Despite all the sophistication apparently employed, the utilisation factors claimed were not good. In a test period with 10 vehicles, an average mileage of 5122 per 30-day period was achieved, at the end of which there was only a 60 per cent availability. And, from a vehicle/hour availability of 7200, only 4200 were scheduled, while only 1184 of these were actually utilised. The remaining 31 06 were lay-up or, in our language, standing or idl€ time. These were the figure: quoted and in my simple way, I did some minor calculations tc discover that somewhere alonc the line our presenter had mis laid some 90 vehicle/hours Sophistication indeed!

Also, despite the "spy in thE cab" tachograph which hat previously been claimed to be r cure-all, it transpired that the 5F, mph limit had been exceededb between eight and 18 mph fo 65 per cent of the running time I return to my assessment o the need to conserve energy ty repeating myself. The heav• right foot is where we must star and best we lighten it with carrot. We must then look at ou routeing, and when those tw items have been accounted foi we can sensibly think abou greater sophistication an higher weights,