There is No Affinity Between Goods and Passenger Road Transport,
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Whereas, in Each of These Two Spheres, There is a Relationship Between Road and Rail. Therefore— Why Only One R.T.E.? c. s. ADstIgiBAR,
M.Inst.T.
ASOMEWHAT surprising feature of the Transport Act is that it makes specific reference to only one Road Transport Executive, although there is no similarity between the operation of goods vehicles and that of passenger vehicles. The Minister is given power, in Section 5 (3), to vary the number and names of the Executive, and it may have been thought that it would not be necessary to appoint an Executive to deal solely with road passenger traffic until some time after the passing of the Act, especially in view of the provision made in Section 63 for the preparation of area schemes after a review of passenger services.
An Unexpected " Gift "
The impression one obtains from reading the Act is that its promoters did not expect that at an early date the British Transport Commission would become the airtight owner of a substantial number of buses, but this has in fact happened as the result of the acquisition of the Tilling group and certain Balfour, Beatty companies. In addition, the Commission is a partner to the extent of 50 per cent, or thereabouts in a number of other bus companies and so is, in effect, interested in road passenger operation throughout the country.
The present arrangement whereby a minority of members with interests or experience mainly or wholly in passenger transport, participate in the work of an Executive which is chiefly concerned with haulage, cannot, surely, be satisfactory. Haulage problems can be of. no practical interest to the passenger members of the Executive, whilst the others must have more than enough to do in the integration of goods transport. If all, the members of the Executive were entirely nonfunctional it might be feasible for the two interests to be dealt with by the one body, but it is not possible to make out a very strong case for such an arrangement.
Dissimilar Services
Passenger transport by road is more closely related to passenger transport by rail than to goods carrying by road. Similarly, the latter has more in common with the railway goods services than with public-service-vehicle operation. It is unfortunate that it is not possible to separate the two aspects completely in rail operation; if it were, the logical arrangement would be the establishment of a Passenger Executive and a Goods Executive, each catering for both road and rail, in place of the present Railway and Road Transport Executives.
Such a solution is not possible in view of the common use of a private track for both goods and passenger rail services, but if nationalization is to mean anything Worth while in practice, it will be necessary in due course to co-ordinate the two sections of road transport with their counterparts in the railways.
It may be that the promoters of the Act had the laudable intention of avoiding centralized control of road passenger services, but that is all the more reason for not maintaining a hybrid Executive. Twenty years ago the present writer, in a paper for the Birmingham
A32 Graduate Society of the Institute of Transport, suggested the creation of what he called "provinces," or, in other words, the division of the country into regions, each combining a number of the existing counties and county boroughs. These provinces, each with its democratically elected council, would be the owners of all large-scale public utility road services in their area—passenger transport included. They might either operate the services themselves or lease. them.
If such provinces were established the bus services now belonging to the B.T.C. would be handed over to them, and the provinces would be charged with the duty of co-ordinating their services with those of the Railway Executive. There would then be no need for a central Road Passenger Executive in London.
No Hasty Area Schemes There is no likelihood of the present Parliament being able to find the time to consider such far-reaching changes as the establishment of provinces would entail, even if the Government accepted the proposal in Principle, but it is to be hoped that there will be no haste in preparing area schemes which might have the effect of removing such popular control as already exists. What would be gained by taking away the control of local authorities over their tram and bus services and substituting an appointed board which might (like the former L.P.T.B.) be in effect answerable to no one?
The work of the licensing authorities in co-ordinating passenger services has been most effective and although there are still examples of illogically placed termini and lack of cross-boundary fares and facilities, these can be remedied if the licensing authorities care to exercise their powers. The acquisition of the private companies would certainly transfer their profits direct to the public purse instead of via the income tax, but unless the change be accompanied by a great increase in democratic control, the resulting organization might not be as responsive to public needs as the existing mixed system.
Local Control to Continue The position, however, is, as already stated, that the B.T.C. has actually acquired important road passenger interests. These have a long tradition of decentralization, and the Commission, it seems, intends to continue this policy, but just as the parent company of the Tilling group exercised some control over its subsidiaries, so will the Commission need to do until and unless some form of provincial government be established.
This could well be managed by the appointment of a small Road Passenger Executive which would take the place of a board of directors without individual detailed responsibilities. Such an Executive could consist entirely of part-time members (except for the chairman). The place of the local boards of company days might be taken by committees on which local interests could be represented by the appointment of nominees by the authorities of the areas covered by the services. These would be added to the technical members of the committees who would be nominated by the Executive.