Press-button Link for Whole B.R.S. Teleprinter System
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Mr. C. W. Quick Smith on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Large-scale Road Haulage
ALL British Road Services teleprinter terminals in England, Wales and Scotland are now linked by the first press-button tape relay system engineered by the G.P.O. The new tape relay and switching centre was opened in London a few days ago. It is now necessary merely to press a button to relay to, say, Norwich, a message received at the London exchange from Cardiff. No " re-typing " or other manual intervention is necessary.
This news was given by Mr. G. W. Quick Smith, a member of the board of management of B.R.S.. in an address to the Instifuto of Transport at Edinburgh on Wednesday. He was reading a paper ,on large-scale road haulage, in which he dealt with its advantages and disadvantages.
He did mot decry the efficiency or usefulness of the smaller hauliers. By effective combination small operators could gain many of the advantages of a large undertaking. he said.
Planned Economy
B.R.S. employed various measures to secure maximum economy from planned operations. The network of furnitureremoval offices, with central control, enabled a high load factor to be achieved. In general haulage, main flows of traffic were canalized through particular depots.
Wasteful empty running in tramp work was reduced by using the teleprinter to advise the depot nearest the destination of the load that a vehicle was arriving. The driver had to report to that depot after unloading. Every depot was required to load an away-based vehicle in the direction of its home base before initiating a tramp journey by a vehicle of its awn.
Another advantage of large-scale organization was that drivers could easily change over at a half-way point and return home each night. Where articulated vehicles were used, the driver handled the same tractor throughout his ;pelt of duty and it need not leave the :ontrol of its own depot.
Apart from the regularity of services which was possible in a large undertakng, thc channelling of traffic through a nuch wailer number of well-equipped lepots permitted a large manufacturer to lave all his haulage requirements made oy one depot. . Mr. Quick Smith stressed the specialr.ed services provided by B.R.S. and the dvantages of hiring vehicles on contract rom them.
At Covent Garden Market, London. .R.S. were able to provide round-theock facilities that would be impossible ir small operators. Merchants using the iarket could go to one traffic office on the spot to place all their orders for transport. As goods left the market, advice was sent by teleprinter to the various destinations.
Fruit importers in London who had cargoes arriving at provincial ports told B.R.S. market office of the quantities and the places throughout Great Britain to which the fruit and vegetables were to be distributed_ B.R.S. did the rest. The daily list of goods cleared was teleprinted to London and the information was passed on to the importers.
In many respects, the most spectacular development in the field of specialist facilities-jay in the B.R.S. ferry services to the Isle of Wight,..Northern Ireland and the Continent.
" It is commonly thought in some quarters that a small haulier can give more personal service than a large undertaking," said Mr. Quick Smith. " There may be some truth in this, although one may well question the validity of the picture that is sometimes conjured up of the small haulier who is at all times ready and willing to obey instantly every behest of his customer.
" Nevertheless, the ordinary routine requirements of a small user will sometimes best be met by a small haulier, who may virtually become part of his customer's undertaking. But the assumption that personal service can only be provided by a smaller haulier is by no means true."
Personal service depended more on organization than size. What really mattered was that the person who accepted a customer's order should have a personal relationship with the customer and command the resources needed to meet his requirements throughout transport.
Personal Service
Personal relationship could easily he established in a large haulage undertaking by organizing the traffic office and its telephone exchange on the right lines, so that One person dealt with particular routes or customers. In the case of certain large customers, B.R.S. traffic clerks were stationed in the users' premises.
The advantages of the most intimate contact were destroyed if the person who dealt with the customer could not command the necessary resources to meet his needs. In B.R.S. the difficulty was overcome by attaching vehicles to the traffic office-cum-depot.
Although a large undertaking could provide a larger range of types and sizes of vehicle and equipment than a small haulier could, it must standardize to some extent. Care must be taken to ensure that standardization did not result in a smaller variety than could be made available by a number of small hauliers in a concentrated area.
"It might be contended," said Mr. Quick Smith, "that in the matter of charges, a large undertaking may tend to be more rigid and reluctant to accommodate a particular customer for fear of running into trouble with others. But in a highly competitive world commercial considerations compel rates to be tailored to suit the characteristics of particular streams of traftic, and the best course is to give a local manager a large measure of authority.
"In so far as control is exercised from above, the lines must be kept clear so that quick decisions are given. The teleprinter is used for this purpose in B.R.S., but it is, of course, the quickness of the decision, as well as the speed of its communication, that is important."
He stressed the importance of the branch trading account as the measure of the success of the local manager in getting traffic at proper rates, carrying it efficiently and economically, and inspiring his team.
In B.R.S., an officer with supporting staff was engaged solely on promoting the use of mechanical aids. Much progress had been made. Experiments were being made to see how far platforms or banks for sorting parcels traffic could be obviated.
More Pallets
Use of pallets in warehouses was increasing, and small cages were proving useful in handling small parcels in transhipment from one vehicle to another. A recent development was the employment of containers for traffic arriving at Portsmouth (Fratton) station, for delivery to the quay and transfer to boats for eventual delivery in the Isle of Wight.
One of the dangers of large-scale haulage was that it might stifle enthusiasm. Long chains of command were also liable to create a sense of remoteness.
Good relationships with the staff could, however, be created in a large undertaking and were helped when the sometimes arbitrary methods of a small employer were replaced by a jointly agreed disciplinary procedure. Comprehensive joint consultative machinery was more practicable in a large undertaking and relations with unions could be happier than in a snuff business. Among incidental disadvantages in large-scale operations were committees—" an occupational disease."
It was necessary, too, to take account of the fact that a big undertaking, in common with other law abiding operators, eduld find itself at a serious disadvantage via a via competitors who did not observe the law.
Moreover, it was necessary to recognize a dangerous tendency for overheads of a large organization to grow. The only remedy was a periodical internal overhaul of the structure and of the work done.
In addition, as an organization grew, the difficulty pf ensuring the profitability of every activity increased. In B.R.S. the breakdown of financial and statistical information was designed to minimize this danger.