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19th July 1921, Page 9
19th July 1921
Page 9
Page 10
Page 9, 19th July 1921 — RAIL VERSUS ROAD.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The Great Railway Offensive and the Methods by which it Must be Countered.

By " Vectis."

ACONSIDERABLE interval has elapsed since I was privileged to contribute to The Commercial Motor a short series of articles dealing with interests which, in my opinion, might be regarded as inimical to the development-of commercial motor transport. 0.a that occasion, I gave first place to the railways, in view of my-conviction that the main interests of these great corporations, acting individually Or collectively, are, and..imust continue to be, opposed to the much-extended use of road vehicles.

It is, of course, argued that the irailways; them. selves are and will, to:art increasing extent, become motor users. We must, however, clearly distinguish between those who wish to see-the wide use of road transport as an.independentideveloprnent and those who wish to see its use:mereIy as a supplement to other systems. The%datter inay mean some limited increase in the. employment of motor 4 vehicles; the former, on the, other hand, may mean an unlimited . increase. I cannot see that those who. would limit the scope Of a great movement can reasonably expect to be regarded as its friends. Xow, that the coal strike, is over, the railways are not unnaturally mobilizing their forces with a view to an organized attack Upon competitors who have, certainly, got well in while, the railways were compelled, by force of circumstances, to offer only very restricted services. The attack is being made simul taneously from two directions. On the one hand, we have the announcement of railway excursion facilities, unequalled since 1914, and, _possibly; to develop into something more comprehensive than has ever been offered before—. On the other hand,we have the attempt to,secure legislation of a kind that would enable the railways to take their comparatively small opponents one by one and demolish thein in detail.

The strength and also the weakness of the commercial motor movement lie in its individual character. It consists of a large number of comparatively small units," which, in the aggregate, constitute • a considerable danger from the point of view'of those who wish the railways to occupy a position tantamount to a monopoly. These comparatively small concerns have more freedom of action than great corporations. Each can follow its own policy as regards.the rates and the services offered. Each can pick or.choose, more or less, ,the scope of its operations,so as to get in at all,those. points where the railways are most vulnerable.

The position is rather reminiscent of guerilla warfare, in which a number of small bands of men gradu-ally iwear down a large organized farce. It is not unnatural that, the railways should become irritated under circumstances of this .kind and should adopt every possible means' of dealing with tht, situation, even though. the means adopted are to an extent,

contradictory. Thus, we find professions of friendliness and appreciation contemporary with action that is evidently meant to ; lead to the extermination of the opposition. Against; straight competition we can nia-ke no reasonable complaint. If the railways can profitably offer excursion facilities at such low rates that the public will use them in preference to the motoe coach, they have a right to the reward naturally following upon the excellence of their method. The trouble is that even in this sphere they may adopt a system which is impossible to the small motor proprietor. They may, in fact, give excursion facilities at prices which represent a dead loss for a very considerable period, with the idea of killing competition and, subsequently, realizing the profit which had to be foregone in the first instance.

This is where the chief strength of a. great corporation as against a number of small competitors lies. In this connection, we may safely say that the irriutor coach proprietor has benefited the public in two ways; one by the provision of his own services and the other by the stimulating effect he has had on the policy of railway managements. Frona the foregoing we see that the privileged position of the railway companies is a. tremendous asset to them in competition with alternative; methods of transport. To balance this fact, it is necessary that they should be. limited as well as privileged. At present, they can only attack the motor coach proprietor by offering a cheaper, but less pleasant, alternative method of travel. What they now seek is to be permitted to offer, not an alternative method, but the same method and conditions Which would make their competition unsupportable..

The magnitude of their operations enables them to purchase supplies of all kinds in large quantities•and at the lowest possible cost. This, in itself, would give the railway-operated motor services an advantage over the privately-operated competing services, assuming both to be run at a reasonable profit.

When we couple with this advantage the fact, already mentioned, that. the railway can, for its ,own purposes, afford to -give. certain facilities at a dead loss, we see the danger of permitting it, to give those facilities at all.'

It is inconceivable that railway managers will ever

cease to regard railed traffic as their primary consideration. .Road traffic will be merely a supplementary branch or an undesirable competitor, as the case may be. If the policy of offering exceptional 'excursion facilities fails to suppress the movement in favour of the motor coach, and to reduce it down to a point which makes it innocuous to the railways, then the obvious step, if that step is permitted, is to enter still more direct competition, providing the public with extremely cheap road traffic facilities for a time, but doing so only with the object of withdrawing those facilities later on and bringing the business back an to the railway.

The railways have always been somewhat fainthearted in their praise ef Mechanical road transport. In eonnection.with the results of their road services,. it has generally been pointed out that a loss or no profit has been made. .This. is, of course, easily explained. The services are, as a rule, run, not to make profits themselves, but to bring business to other sections of the company's activities, or to develop local demand until the provision of rail facilities is justified. The same policy would, doubtless, be continued if the railways possessed unrestricted powers to put motors on the road. The Services would be run, if necessary, at a loss to complete the excursion facilities of the railways from point to point and, so, to enable these to dispose of the competition of the motor coach proprietor.

As in the past, so in the future, the motor would be used simply and solely to get passengers and goods on ta the railways. If they could not be induced to transfer from road to rail willingly, by providing them with cheap carriage to the railway stations, then they would be compelled by the process of wiping out competitorsand then withdrawing or curtailing the road services.

The public has had a fine example just lately of the way in whieh the railways may be stimulated by competition from the road. It cannot. then be supposed that the public, if it. takes the trouble to consider the position, would desire to give the railways the power of killing that competition, and, in fact, of laying -down the law as to how the bulk of the people shall travel and then offering them a combination of -the minimum of speed with the maximum of discomfort..

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