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A. B. B. Valentine THAT nearly all London routes operated by single-deck buses failed to earn their keep, that economy at the expense of the standard Of service given was commercially wrong, and that capital expenditure on transport was totally inadequate,, were among the views expressed by Mr. A. B. 'B. Valentine, a member of the London Transport Executive, in his presidential address to the Institute on Transport, on Monday.
He took for his address a sentence from Section 3 (1) of the Transport Act, 1947, in which the British Transport Commission was enjoined to provide an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated" system of public transport.
" Integrated " and "efficient" were words which seemed fairly clear, hut " adequate" a nd " economical " we re not so easy to understand.
Defining Integration Mr. Valentine was content to define integration by reference as" the application in other fields of transport, mutatis.matandis (with the neCessary changes), of the financial and operational co-ordination of all means for• passenger transport progressively perfeoted in London ia the past 46 years." lie did not wish it to be thought that his choice of a text friarn the Transport Act meant that his niind was running on the duties and priablems of the Commission to the exclusion of transport not yet controlled by it or permanently outside its scope.
On the contrary, he said, he thought that all providers of transport embraced by the Institute should accept as theie own conception of their duties and objectives the need. to make their services efficient, adequate and economical, whether integrated or not. Definiga the word "efficient," whatever transport operators did, he said, it , was surely always right that they should do it with a minimum of expenditure of materials and manpower.
But what did " adequate " mean? How could one know and who was to say when the system of transport, and the, services in detail, were less or more than adequate ? It was a word, Mr. Valentine said, which presented the management of almost every substantial transport undertaking with one of its most responsible and difficult problems.
Service Versus Price • He4took it to mean not only the quantity, but the quality and timing of any service provided, including the question whether it should be provided at all. An appropriate standard of service could seldom be dissociated from its price, yet the public and the critics of transport rarely coupled the two aspects.
When services were under public consideration, the tendency was to ask for More and better facilities without asking whether they would increase the price. The question of adequate services raised the point as to where the balance should he struck between standard of service and price. Some' members of the public would prefer a lower price even if they knew it meant a poorer service, whilst there were others who held diametrically opposite views. "If we provided services grossly inadequate, but cheaper," said Mt. Valentine, "we should be
attacked for inadequacy only If we pros ided services unnecessarily frequent and luxurious, but too .dear, we should be attacked for our high charges only. Whenwe avoid either extreme we are attacked on both counts—with demands for better service and for lower charges, and we know we are nearer the mark."
A minimum standard, he said, would be expressed in terms of the degree of public need, or, if it were preferred, the degree of hardship involved to the users concerned, were the service inferior or withdrawn. Where costs were averaged Ml the charges, the commercial test was of no he'p in settling the standard of individual services.
It followed that services, existing or proposed, which are or would he unremunerative at the averaged charges, could not be rejected merely on that account. If they were, said Mr. Valentine, those suburban areas in London in which single-deckers were employed because of road conditions, low bridges or overhanging trees, would get practically no service, as nearly all the single-decker routes failed to earn their keep.
Economy at the expense of the standard of service was commercially wrong and, in the long run, against the public interest.
In askiag that more attention be paid to operational research, Mr. Valentine said that he was making a general plea for more knowledge and less guessing before it was accepted that present practices, methods and designs of equipment were necessarily the best.
The purposes of operational research included the examination of the validity of existing practices, and the behaviour. habits and requirements of traffic and of staff to ensure the most effective use of existing resources of staff and equipment.
"I am," he said, "a great believer in the reality of what has become to be described as know-how,' but we could also do with more ' know-why.' "
It was doubtful whether the capital expenditure 'allowed was as large as it should be, not merely in the interests of the industry, bu a_ the Nation. I was impossible to escape the suspicion that those who .allocated the resources of materials and manpower which were available for capital improvement and development between different industries and purposes were inclined to regard expenditure on improved transport as if it were largely unproductive. and, in the passenger field, as if it were designed merely to increase the ameni ties of life for which, the Nation, in its present circumstances, must wait. This was a glaring misconception.
A Gobd Investment
Without raising the controyersial question . whether, by the test of productivity, the country was spending too much of its available resources on certain social services and housing. Mr. Valentine said he believed i' could be proved that the expenditure of ilOm, on road improvement would produce a bigger and guicker dividend in the ,saving of man-hours, equipment and resourcesthan an equal expenditure by almost any of the major -indus trial users of Capital to-clay..
A well-known authority had said in private that such an 'investment on roads could, be shown to 'yield a return in increased oatput . perhaps thre. times greater -than the return obtained from the same capital on oil or steel or electricity. Oespite this, the Government had put what was almost a complete ban on capital investment in roads.
" It might conic as a surprise to many outside this Institute." he said.
that we can find it possible to spend only about two-thirds of I per cent. of the national income on road improvements and maintenance."
Capital Starvation
We paid a little more on newspapers and on football pools, and 20 times more on drink and tobacco. each year than we did on roads. In his opinion. nothing impaired the efficiency of our transport more than capital starvation.
Mr. Valentine concluded his address by referring to morale_ Not only the quantity of output but the quality of service rendered to users of transport was affected in a hundred ways by the pride with which the work was undertaken, When major re-organizations were taking place and old traditions, practices and loyalties were being disturbed, as was happening in British Road Services, it was probably inevitable that many of the changes were distrusted. For the moment, morale was impaired, as well as efficiency. The deferment of capital expenditure also depressed morale.
Mr. Valentine also criticized the trade unions which, in their efforts to strengthen their bargaining position, tended to emphasize the less attractive features of transport employment.