Is the Small Haulier Doomedl
Page 54
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By A. R. WILSON MANY small hauliers must feel they are approaching the cross-roads and wonder what the future holds in store if present trends continue at the same pace or accelerate. On the one hand, there is a gathering spate of take-avers, where a main object is diversification, ensuring better linking and assured working for vehicles. On the other, there are determined attacks by the trader seeking to change from C and Contract A to A or B and enter the world of hire and reward. Slanting over his shoulder is the shadow of a general election in the near future with all its political uncertainty.
Although the small haulier does not claim to be of a privileged class, it is small comfort to him to reflect that he paid through the nose for licences on the partial break-up of B.R.S. little more than seven years ago.
While Contract A in relation to the whole is of small volume at present, it does represent a leak which could gather flood momentum if unchecked. But the bulk of the cake has been taken by C licences. No one, not even the haulier, will quarrel with that, so long as the cobbler sticks to his last. If the C licensee seeks to, and does, establish the principle of converting to hire and reward when it suits his book, then the haulier is entitled to use all legitimate means at his command in opposition. In such cases it poses for examination the question of whether an applicant for a C licence or C hiring allowance should show a modified form of proof of need, in the same manner as all applicants for hire and reward, before he can distribute his own goods.
The Merchandise, H. W. Steel, Unilever, and other cases have put a different complexion on the whole basic concept of licensing. The principle here is that manufacturers or traders want to carry for hire and reward as return loads, or when their vehicles are not fully occupied with distribution of their own products. That may be a legitimate aim to keep operating costs down, but it is a direct attack on the-hatilier, who has great difficulty in securing additional tonnage without a cast iron case and does not have the protection of a large measure of guaranteed work.
If traders want to carry return loads, or hire out their vehicles on local work, then they have spare vehicle capacity and therefore too many vehicles. Even with return loads the time factor has some effect. In consequence the traffic will be creamed, only the quick and easy loads being accepted, and the small and difficult lots left to the haulier.
Where a trader's vehicle fleet is geared to handle his distribution of a peak production, which may be seasonal and last for only a few weeks in a year, then some of his vehicles must be idle or underworked for the greater part of the year. There is also fluctuation in production between one year and another which results in rises and falls in the need for sp vehicles. Where that condition obtains with the right to ca return loads, it is possible to send vehicles out with less ti 'full loads, the extra -cost being recouped in return loads. Wholesalers and retailers seldom hold' stocks of any mat tilde and a spurt in sales means replacement, an order of being conditional on quick delivery. Therefore there many orders where time does not permit the making up a full load and more small lots go out. This raises the c to the trader, but it can be minimized by return loading.
In effect, the haulier is being asked to subsidize the tradt operating costs. When the trader's fleet is fully occup with his own distribution at peak periods, he is unable handle the hire and reward part until the phase has pass leaving the customers supplying return loads high and d Alternatively, it could be the basis of additional tonnage, w possibly a better proof of need than the haulier could sum
It may seem a drastic step to demand that the trader shoi show proof of need before being granted a C licence, bui the stage is set for large-scale infiltration there i6 every ma; to bring the trader into line with restrictions on the haul If such a step were taken it would create an administrat problem which could be minimized in several ways. 'goods vehicles up to one ton or 11 tons u.w. could be frl entirely from licensing control, as I suggested in an arti published in The Commercial Motor, April 27, 1962. Of remainder, all classes of specialized vehicles which could readily be .turned to other forms of haulage would be exer and continue to receive a C licence grant as an unfettered r4 leaving only the core of lorries and vans which are the ca
of complaint. .
In the initial stages there would be no necessity for applicant for a C licence or C hiring allowance to be he in open court, the case could well be decided in chamlN There would have to be a right of appeal in the same man, that the Tribunal operates for the haulier.
What the haulier cannot overcome is the fact that in so traders' fleets, there are many legitimate A and B as v as C licensed vehicles. Where manufacturing or trad businesses absorb one another or combine, there is noth to prevent them acquiring A or B licences in the open mar and throwing in their C licences. In this way they not o lower their transport costs, but, with a large measure guaranteed work, possibly turn what is an on-cost departm into a profit-making department.
The small haulier cannot compete with that. If the trc continues, and the railways also start creaming traffic, it will a moot point where the small independent haulier and difficult low-rated traffic fit in.