BLINDED
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THE injunction to blind them with science can hardly ever have been taken more literally than by Mr. K. C. W. Grand, a member of the British Transport Commission, in his presidential address to the Institute of Transport. He chose "The Science of Transport-" for his title, and a good deal of what he had to say consisted of elegant variations on such themes as pure and applied science, art and science, culture and anarchy, and so on. An agreeable essay, but it left one in two minds whether Mr. Grand was merely indulging in flights of fancy or meant his extraordinary contentions to be taken seriously.
He had evidently given his subject considerable thought. Among other things he had gone to the trouble of drafting the following carefully worded definition of what he called the applied science of transport: "An analysis of all forms of transport to determine how each form may best be used, separately and in combination, in the interest of the public and the nation."
Mr. Grand also stressed the importance of history, and it is therefore pardonable to suggest that his definition is strongly redolent of neat solutions of the transport problem that have been wrapped up and stowed away in the past. Although less overwhelming, it is of the same family as the call for the "provision of an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system " which was made in one of the early clauses of the first Transport Act in 1947, and was so lamentably unfulfilled. Another close relation may be found in the terms of reference of the egregious Road and Rail Association, Let it be made clear at once that there is nothing wrong with thesedefinitions and terms of reference, as such. An analysis on the lines proposed by Mr. Grand could well throw up a number of valuable ideas for improving transport services. The mistake lies in supposing that the analysis could also, by some means or other, reveal an ideal pattern or system which thenceforth need only be adopted—possibly by means of yet another Transport Act —to ensure that nobody would ever again have cause to complain about the transport service he receives, and that shrines would be set up spontaneously all over the country in honour of Sir Brian Robertson. .
To Extremes
This may be taking Mr. Grand's arguments to extremes, but he went almost as far in the opposite direction, by painting an alarming picture of what might happen if his definition were ignored. If allowed to grow unchecked by scientific analysis, he suggested, transport "could develop until each nation possessed, on the one hand a collection of bankrupt public services, and on the other an astronomical fleet of privately owned vehicles of all kinds which could only continue to move if cities were rebuilt and motorways multiplied." The real cost of transport, Mr. Grand went on, would mount until it became a formidable part of the entire cost of living.
Mr. Grand could hardly say more plainly that the Clicensed vehicle and the private car are anathema to the scientific mind. He even went on to 'talk of the ." costly chaos in which millions of individual choices will land those who take them without regard to wider issues." At this stage in his address he might well have checked himself and wondered whether his original premises were as foolproof as he had supposed. For what "wider issues" could there be than the contentment of millions of individuals?
It is true that some restrictions have to be imposed. This particularly applies to the private car.. No matter how many roads are built, some limits will almost certainly have to continue on the number of cars coming into the centres of large towns. In the same way, there must be a limit on the number of spectators allowed into a football ground. If extra people crowded in, the only available room for them would be on the pitch, and this would destroy the whole purpose of their visit. It is also true that some public transport services ought to be encouraged and, in a few cases, even artificially preserved. Again, it is with the carriage of passengers that this problem mainly arises._ In general, the function of government must be to see that vehicles do not cause undue obstruction or destroy reasonable amenities, and to safeguard those public services that have a value to the community. But this falls very far short of the totalitarian conception of Government implied in Mr. Grand's definition.
In fact, for all his talk about science, Mr. Grand was being hopelessly unscientific. He harked -back to the period when the Institute of Transport was formed 40 years ago, and quoted with approval the dictum put forward at that time by Sir George Gibb, that" transport is a science having its own laws and principles." The inference was presumably that the Institute had found nothing in 40 years to justify revising that opinion.
Old-Fashioned
Even in those days, however, it was becoming a little oldfashioned to suppose that almost every branch of knowledge or learning could be treated in this mechanical fashion. There were principles and laws, no doubt, for such things as politics and economics, but fewer and fewer people believed that those subjects were like a chemical equation and could be disposed of on the strength of an analysis, unless, of course, one were in a position to ignore the wishes of other people.
Once introduce the human element and exact science can find no resting place. Mr. Grand seemed to have forgotten this point. He even drew a deliberate distinction between Subjective art and objective, impersonal science. Possibly the practitioners of transport would find it an advantage if their operations could be impersonal. A perfect timetable could be devised and strictly adhered to—if there were no passengers. to worry about. It is because people wish to travel at certain times rather than others, and to send their goods. to A instead of to B, that transport can never reach a state of scientific perfection. The whole art of the operator lies in pleasing the customer.
A more fruitful distinction might be that made in certain branches of science between the organic and the inorganic. Transport is unmistakably—if only metaphorically—in the former category. It is evolving all the time. As a consequence, while Mr. Grand and his computers in the Ivory Tower are making their painstaking analysis of the transport facilities available, the transport industry may be developing into something quite different from what it was when they began. Their conclusions would probably be interesting, but certainly not suitable for direct application.
It may have been Mr. Grand's intention to clarify rather than obscure the issue. He may have blinded himself with science just as much as his audience. It is still important that the issue should be kept clear, particularly in view of the continued interest of the politicians in transport. They have ability enough to obscure an issue without adventitious help.