B.R.S. to Specialize T HE first report of the Road Haulage
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Disposal Board adds significant detail to the broad outline of the future British Road Services, as already drawn by Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, the Board's chairman. The British Transport Commission have chosen for themselves a specialist role in road transport and in the fields that they have selected they will be strong competitors of private enterprise. The Commission's fleet is to be reduced by slightly over 90 per cent. to 3,559 vehicles. Of these, nearly 32 per cent. will be used for specialized work and the remainder will probably be engaged on trunk haulage and ancillary services. B.R.S. are to retain 238 abnormal indivisible load carriers and 473 furniture vans, or 60 per cent. of their present fleets of those vehicles. Eighty per cent. of the tankers (215) are also to be kept.
Influence Maintained Consequently, in the spheres of machinery transport, furniture removals and the bulk transport of liquids, B.R.S. will preserve much of the hold that they already have. Contract hiring is, however, to be reduced by some 67 per cent., leaving the Commission with only 202 vehicles engaged on this work.
The B.T.C. are disposing of 93 per cent. of their general haulage vehicles and are keeping only 2,431. Last year, B.R.S. employed 4,524 vehicles on registered trunk services and as they• are anxious to preserve the long-distance network as far as possible, it may be assumed that practically all the general haulage vehicles to be retained will be run on regular trunk services. Although their influence in this sphere will be approximately halved, it will still be formidable.
Private-enterprise operators will have a clear field in meat haulage and parcels and smalls, for, as already announced, the Commission are sacrificing all their interests in these departments of road transport. The meat vehicles offered for sale number 576, but official statistics do not identify the parcels and smalls vehicles.
"Cannot be Rushed" The publication of this information will help prospective purchasers of transport units to shape their course of action and to decide the field in • which they will engage. Disposal is, however, unlikely to be carried out quickly and the Board have warned the Minister of Transport that the operation "cannot be rushed."
Their report refers to the necessity of selling the Commission's road haulage undertaking "at a proper price and to the proper people." This phrase is mystifying, because Sir Malcolm has gone to some pains in the past to emphasize that price is the only consideration in the sale of transport units. He has said that no regard would be had to the qualifications of individual tenderers.
By "proper people" is presumably meant small operators, whose interests the Commission and the Board are directed by the Transport Act, 1953, to safeguard. Whether limited means alone make a tenderer desirable is, however, open to question.