Formula Not Intended to Work"
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WHEN the Transport Tribunal last VV week resumed consideration of the British Transport Commission's freight charges scheme, Mr. Walter Raeburn, Q.C., for the Traders' Co-ordinating Committee on Transport, claimed that the loadabilitY formula was unworkable. The Commission, he declared, had never intended it to work, but merely to be a formal compliance with the law.
If maximum charges were placed at a higher level than "the natural limit," the scheme might as well not exist, • The whole basis of charging was misconceived. The Ccimmission merely wished for elbow room within which to meet competition by ruthless cross-subsidization.
-Mr. Raeburn suggested, as a shortterm method, that existing standard charges, perhaps increased to meet current conditions, should be converted into the maximum. As a longterm measure, the average cost • of transport should be carefully considered and charges should be based on the results. The average direct cost might he increased by 15-20 per cent. to cover " adversity."
15-MINUTE STAGGER WOULD SOLVE DIFFICULTIES nIFFICULT1ES in providing workmen's services would be solved if workmen's hours were staggered by only 15 minutes, Mr. W. Mayes, general manager of Darlington Transport Department, told Darlington Transport Users' Consultative Committee.
The department needed another 140 workers, and it was physically impossible to meet everyone's needs at peak hours. Companies should give adequate notice of their transport requirements Many abnormal loads were being carried by road today, said Mr. Mayes. and buses were sometimes caught in traffic jams caused by these loads.
Lo.T. LECTURE ON LONDON RUSES
A PAPER entitled, "The Bus in rALondon, 1856-1956," will be presented to the Institute of Transport at the Jarvis Hall, 66 Portland Place, London, W.1, at 5,45 p.m. on February 13 by Mr. R. M. Robbins, secretary of the London Transport Executive,
The Brancker Memorial Lecture was to have been delivered on this date, but the donor, Mr. R. S. Damon, president of Trans-World Airlines, has died.
The council of the Institute have authorized the formation of a Melbourne Graduate and Student Society of the Victorian Section.
MUNICIPAL MANAGERS MEET 'THE annual meeting of the managers' 1 section of the Municipal Passenger Transport Association will be held on May 30-31 at Bradford.