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AT LAST a company has been formed—in Zurich—to act as
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a central clearing house for international removals. Those participating are 32 leading international household removers with their bases in 13 European countries. I can only comment on the length of time it has taken for the idea to set up such an organization to achieve practical realization.
Since about 1960 British removers have slowly but successfully embarked upon door-to-door delivery of loads to all parts of the Continent by their own vehicles. Small operators, some with no more than two vans, claim adequately profitable activities even though returning empty. In the small lots field—small domestic removals, antiques, reproduction furniture and personal baggage—much of the work is undertaken by newcomers without experience in the conventional removing business.
It has been relatively easy for any size of British operator to break into this field because in Britain the general public looks upon a removal contractor as an operator unlimited in permitted scope and ability—partly due to the relative lack of advertising and publicity about household removers. However, in the United States the major van lines take television time to try to make a name impact. Allied Van Lines, to name one operator, speaks for its agents, from coast to coast and in Canada, too—distances the equal of any journey from this country to any other in Europe.
The van lines operators do not, of course, limit their activities to removals traffic within the North American continent. They are also concerned with military removals to Europe and their return to US, and to an ever-increasing extent, domestic removals for Americans being moved by their employers to European factories and offices. But the traffic does not end with removals—commercial traffic too, is involved. Thus, by one means or another, some van lines, seeing the full scale of the potential traffic resulting from the different and sometimes more advantageous, goods vehicle licensing systems in different countries, have established their own organizations.
Whether or not a van line has its own associated company or uses a European agent, the commercial pressures resulting from the size of its operations are naturally felt in many directions, and their activities and methods have been criticized widely. The pros and cons of those criticisms are not the concern of this article. What matters more is whether the van line concept of removals organization is one which will spread to this country and the Continent either through competitive necessity or because the licensing of vehicles for household removals in Britain is going to become so very much easier for new entrants and established operators alike.
I have visited the United States seven times during the past two years an addressed many of their Mover Conventions: I was able to detect in thei private inquiries to me afterwards, the idea that were circulating among th internationally minded.
The van line system in the United State came into existence chiefly because of th economic impossibility of a single compan: being able to give a national service in country of such a large size. It was the roal answer to the railroad ability to giv national coverage, albeit through differen railroads.
The American removals industry eve today, is composed very much like the British industry, with a large number of units ranging from two to five vehicles. Some, of course, are much larger, just as they are here. It is estimated that the USA has about 13,000 firms, one to about every 14,000 population, operating between them some 45.000 vehicles. It is significant that only a quarter of these have operating rights which take them outside of their own base State and when it is appreciated that, market research has established that the average American moves once in every four years and that the main population trend is westwards, it will be easily understood why it is necessary for territorially limited operators to link up in some way to give a national coverage.
Contrary to the ingrained fears that the Americans have of large-scale operations that can result in monopolies, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the governing body dealing with inter-state goods vehicle operating licences, understanding these difficulties has approved nation-wide carrier systems and their attendant pooling systems and agency agreements with local carriers.
Another almost equally important reason for the van line system is the seasonal nature of the removals business. Only during the months of June, July and August in each year is the total national equipment in lull use. In April, May and September it is about half the total availability. In the remaining months it is at less than a third and even in these periods, the pressure periods are from the 25th of one month to the 2nd of the next.
The waste of equipment and manpower (and particularly, the difficulty of having sufficiently skilled staff at the peak periods) is obvious. The reasons for it are historical. It goes back to the earliest days of the Republic when America was an agricultural society, and its youth needed to be away from school at harvesting time. The requirements of the now, immensely larger industrial economy are very different, but no attempt has succeeded in changing the school year accordingly.
As a consequence, most families with • children try to move during the summer vacation or during the semester break to avoid disruption of their children's education. A secondary reason is, of course, not without its parallel in this country, that it is more pleasant to move during the warm weather. But with 50 per cent of the total volume moving in three months and 20 days out of every 30 providing little operational activity, the moving business is a highly costly one, particularly when it is borne in mind that the operating authority of a remover is usually restricted to that class of work and carries with it none of the benefits of the A licence to a remover in this country who has what we call the "abnormal user" to help him when removal demand is low.
The American licensing system is complicated and its regulatory effects reach deep into every administrative and operational aspect of a carrier's business; tariffs of rates, conditions of carriage, documentation are all part of it. To add to its complication, an operator does not deal with a single authority. Local work is normally free of all restriction within the boroughs of a city. Outside the city but within the limits of the State, there is a controlling public body regulating intra-Slate operations and between States, the ICC regulatmg inter-State-movements.
It is not surprising then, that such a conglomeration of small removal businesses should aggregate and form part of national van line organizations to open up their trading scope. And if the reasons I have mentioned were not enough there is a modern trading change in removals which would be sufficient in itself. In the United Kingdom, housr:!lold removals still largely remain entirely within the choice of the person wishing to be moved; in America, it is estimated that only one-third of the total removals business is done in this way—and it tends to decrease year by year.
Employee removals, are not only paid for but organized by the employers on a national' basis through a van line. This now amounts to one-third of the total and is indeed highly competitive, demanding high level sophisticated selling. The remaining third is military movement where once again, the small man can only participate nationally, if he has the benefit of a van line organizatiorrbehind him.
The equipment used for removals is similar to our own, only for local and intra-State movement. These all have back and side loading, a high proportion being equipped with lifting mechanism to deal with heavy domestic equipment (the average weight per cubic foot has risen by about 25 per cent during the past 10 years) and with electronics machinery, the carriage of which is now automatically written into a removal carrier's operating rights. This equipment is that which is considered to require the special skills of the household removal contractor.
Inter-State (and to some extent within the largest States) articulated tractive units are universally used with up to 2800 cubic capacity for a 10-ton payload. These trailers vary, in type but all have side and back-loading . . •. usually both sides and often with more than one entrance on each side. Pallet-carrying trailers may have as many as five double-doors on each side but some have merely dropping canvases. All long-distance trailers can carry pallets but the specially designed pallet-carrying trailers are most often used relatively locally and for office and factory removals.
Long-distance operation An outstanding feature of the longdistance operation is that while the trailers are owned or leased (very commonly, in these days by the operators,) the tractive units are usually owned by their drivers. The owner-operators are the very basis of successful long-distance operation. They operate under the licences of the operator and enter into long-term contracts often of considerable complexity. The high earnings of these owner-operators ensure very high productivity and dispense with the need to use complicated mathematical productivity formulae since their earnings are geared to a percentage of their truck earnings.
What we call the licensing system in this country goes very much further in the United States, because of the quite excessive intervention of the administration in rates and charges and conditions of carriage. Unfavourable public images of the removal industry created by a highly critical article in the Reader's Digest and followed up by the national magazines and ambitious politicians, has resulted in a stream of regulatory procedures. These have produced national conformity in methods and documentation and severe financial penalties for non-compliance. Furthermore, there is a rather more than reasonable readiness on the part of the general public to make known its complaints direct to the administrative authorities!
Coupled with this are the tariff bureaux who are independent of the trade associations and arrange the rates and charges for their members. The Americans believe that without a system of rate control there would be chaos in the removal industry. An "estimate" for a removal in the United States, unlike its meaning in this country, means just what the word says— but its content is comprehensive and substantial differences between the estimated and the actual charge raised, have to be disclosed on the documents and are subject to official scrutiny. Once again, the public is encouraged to send its complaints direct to officialdom.
Operating revenue A feature of the system is the obligatory disclosure of financial statistical results of the larger carriers in a comparison with the similar period a year earlier. The total operating revenue is divided as between inter-city revenue and long distance. The total operating expense also has to be shown and put in percentage terms against the revenue. A large number show from time to time, expenses well above revenue.
In terms of revenue, Allied Van Lines, North American, Aero Mayflower Transit and United Van Lines are the largest, and roughly in that order. But there are many others. Membership methods vary, some are co-operatives and some are not; some are what we would call public companies. In some, all individual operating rights have to be surrendered, in others they do not. Most have individually interesting differences in the causes of their creation, United for example, being something of a breakaway group from Allied. At every convention that I have attended the major , van lines have a small independent conference out of the main business sessions.
Although most removers are members of a van line, there are many who having wide operating rights in themselves, are not. The outsider gains the impression from the sight of the operating stock, that the member of a van line loses his separate identity in the inter-state operations. Locally engaged vehicles carry less or no indication of the van line association. Generally, only on the two-axle vehicles, those on short-distance work, is the member's characteristic livery to be found.
European van line The latest news that a second European consortium, Allied Van Lines Europe, has been formed which will co-operate with the largest van line in America raises the obvious speculation as to what the remaining large van lines will do to put themselves on level terms. Although Allied Van Lines will, it is understood, have no investment in the European consortium, no directors upon its board or influence its direction, the use of its name and the certainty of its co-operation, are meaningful.
For domestic purposes, Allied Van Lines in 1967 had a revenue of about $75 million. The total gross, including international movements, would obviously be very much higher. There are the three other largest competing lines and a host of others of lesser gross revenue stature. It is difficult to imagine that we have seen the end of the consortia formations. But it is very easy for such activities never to suffer or enjoy (according to their wishes) any publicity at all.
Although, superficially, the new concept is in terms of household removals, it must be remembered that all classes of traffic pass through, not only the van lines themselves but also through their member agents who are often packers, shippers and forwarders in a very large way of business.
The inevitability of European network agency combinations with sophisticated systems of communication and data processing, necessarily flows from the shrinkage of distances that those technological advancements superficially achieve.
What obviously weighs heavily with a participant member, is his reputation laboriously built up over many years by the old methods of personal agency selections. Will he lose that reputation both nationally and internationally? Will he end up by being no more than a digit in the infernal machinery? It was this aspect of the system that aroused my active curiosity in every part of the North American continent. To pursue it, it was necessary to talk to men away from the hearty blah-blah of the annual conventions.
I spoke to the highest executives of large, well-known, highly reputation-conscious firms of long and successful establishment, to relative newcomers and the chief officers of the van lines themselves.
Declining image The lasting impression that 1 have is of the apprehension of all alike in the declining public image of the industry. Every convention seems to have a speaker on the topic. A lot of money is being voted to attempt to improve it. It is vigorously and rightly contended that the complaints are trifling in proportion to business volume and that they are magnified out of all proportion for political ends. Yet it persists and endless bureaucratic regulatory processes in documentation, conditions of carriage and the like fail to eliminate but rather to accentuate them. In this country there is nothing like it.
The most succinct summary that I find to be quite commonplace in the United States of America and in Canada is that "Ours is a mighty big country . . . and there are van lines and van lines". The European consortia will have the advantage of full acquaintanceship with the American experience and they should find much better ways of avoiding the bad aspects.