CONTRASTS
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By JANUS
WITHOUT doubt, London Transport were resigned in advance to the kind of comment they would have to sutler folldwing the announcement that they had produced a timetable compiled by an electronic computer. The standard reaction from the public was that the one thing needed was a second computer that would make the buses keep to the timetable fixed by the first. Although it had nothing to do with the efficiency of the service, the new development was seized upon as a symbol of the inability to run a transport undertaking successfully merely by taking thought.
The paper read to the Institute of Transport by Mr. H. C. Johnson, general manager, Eastern region, British Railways, might easily attract the same kind of criticism. He shows that a good deal of thought has gone into railway organization, even if the results are not readily apparent in the accounts of the British Transport Commission. The temptation should be resisted to suggest that more attention should be given to operation than to organization. Mr. Johnson makes his case plainly, and his paper is an interesting and valuable contribution to transport thought.
HE makes some play with the fact that political developments still cause doubt and uncertainty. He warily disguises his own opinion. "The wind of change is certainly blowing hard; let us hope it is in the right quarter," he says. For this reason it would be rash to suggest that he is manifestly relieved at no longer haying to pay lip-Service to the virtues of integration and to other equally intractable doctrines. All the same, his views gain in clarity and sense because he is able, without preamble or reservations, to confine himself strictly to the subject .of the railways.
One of the excuses frequently made by Socialists for the manifest failure of the Transport Act, 1947, was that so many of the leading figures in the Commission and on the railways—to say nothing of British Road Services—did not like the idea of integration and made no attempt to follow it up. The suspicion may not be without justification. The spokesmen for the Commission seldom seemed very happy with their briefs, and they no doubt feel far more relaxed now that they no longer have to keep up with the Fabians.
IT may be no more than a debating point on the part of the Socialists to accuse he leaders of nationalized transport of sabotaging the principle of integration. The accusation may conveniently disguise the unpalatable truth that, if the experts were lukewarm or covertly hostile, they had good reasons for being so and were in a better position than anybody else to appreciate the force of those reasons. Lack of co-operation from within the Commission condemned the principle and not its detractors.
Even if Mr. Johnson did not have this point in mind, his paper goes a long way towards proving it. He is able to leave integration out of account and makes no attempt to introduce it by the back door. His paper describes a plan of organization that is admirable, perhaps inevitable, for the railways, but that would not suit other industries and especially road haulage. He goes so far as to say that, when it is a question of devising the best organization, -" the railway industry is unique," a remark that might well have got him into serious trouble 10 years ago.
He does not make the mistake of admiring organization for its own sake. It is a means to an end, he says, and
defines it as "the process by which we harness the available resources—human, physical and financial—so that they can be used in the most effective manner for the good of an undertaking." His paper is concerned mostly with the human element. He notes the present emphasis on the advantages of smaller management and operating units, which reverses the trend up to the time of nationalization. He approves of a wide measure of decentralization, although he adds the warning that, if carried too far, it " would produce an inefficient overall service."
Hauliers might apply this teaching to themselves in almost the reverse sense. Their own trend towards larger operating units, at no time rapid, has been virtually continuous, and outside causes were responsible for the brief break in the process at the time of disposal. If there is any danger that threatens the harmonious growth of a road haulage business, it lies in too rigid a control from the centre, so that the preservation of decentralization is a corrective rather than a major aim.
Almost as if it were intended to. be an advance commentary on Mr. Johnson's paper, the Commission issued a few days previously a report of .a survey made in conjunction with the Association of British Chambers of Commerce into transport services to British ports. On the rail side emphasis was given to the Export Express Service Oo 10 ports from over 300 inland centres. Nearly all the rail traffic was in small consignments under one ton or in consignments over five tons. On the whole, the railway organization, which has been built up over the past four years, does not come badly out of the comparison, although it is signficant that, of the traders not using the service, 43 per cent. said that road services were better and a further 7 per cent, stated that they preferred to use their own vehicles.
VIRTUALLY all the traffic in consignments of between one and five tons went by road, as well as a considerable proportion of the lighter and the heavier traffic. With no particular intention of doing so, the survey builds up a picture of a wide variety of road haulage vehicles and operators carrying all kinds of traffic. Road transport had the lion's share of practically all the commodities listed in the report, and carried virtually the lot in certain cases, including cigarettes and tobacco, wines and spirits, motor vehicles and timber.
The pattern is repeated in the volume of traffic carried to the various ports, with one or two exceptions, notably Grangemouth and Newcastle, where the proportion brought by rail was in each case over 90 per cent.
It would be difficult to visualize a paper similar in scope to that of Mr. Johnson's being delivered about the road haulage industry. For one thing, Mr. Johnson contrives to give a full-scale review of railway organization without referring to the trains that actually do the work of carrying the goods and passengers. Organization in road haulage may often be said to begin with the lorry—and even to end there in the case of the very small operator. His ideal would be to have his vehicles working continuously, round the clock if possible, and loaded all the time. Something not far removed from the ideal may happen in practice where there is regular traffic flowing in the right directions. The overall picture of road haulage is far less clear than that given by Mr. Johnson of the railways, but there is no lack of interesting details.