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Traffic overflow
Congestion problem Congestion is an almost universal problem. It does not arise equally at every point in a road system. It may be due to a number of factors not directly concerned with roads. There is at times an intolerable concentration of traffic which no multiplication of routes could dissipate.
The purely statistical solution to the BRF equation would be to double the mileage of roads. Few people would advocate this. The proper approach is a programme of road improvement—and in some cases new construction—to relieve those routes where congestion arises or is likely to arise.
For the commercial vehicle operator the pressing need is not so much for more road mileage—although this is not a negligible consideration—as for more room at each end of his journey. It is not much consolation to gain 20 minutes or so on a motorway when many times that length of time is lost in town roads not designed for lorries and in waiting outside premises which can cope with only one or two vehicles at a time.
Statistics reveal other differences between motorists and commercial operators. Part of the road problem is the rapid growth in the vehicle population. In 1968 the grand total for cars, motorcycles, buses and coaches, taxis, goods vehicles and "other vehicles" reached 144m. Five years earlier in 1963 it was 111-m.
During the intervening period the number of motorcycles—not extravagant of road space whatever other problems they may cause—fell by im and the number of cars rose by 3+m to nearly I 1m. There were no changes of anything like the same magnitude among other categories of road users. Here at least is one case where the statistics seem to point to only one possible conclusion. Whatever the basic cause of road congestion any aggravation of the problem in recent years must be due to the rapid rise in the motoring population.
If the statistics are to be trusted the number of commercial goods vehicles seems to have reached a plateau of approximately lfm. The doubt arises from the inconsistency of some of the figures. According to the table of vehicles in use published by the BRF the total rose by 23,700 in 1965, fell by 31,450 in the following year, rose again by 50,050 in 1967 and fell again by 53,400 to the latest figure of 1,564,700 in September 1968.
The Ministry of Transport publication Highway Statistics 1967 gives different and higher totals for each year. Both sets of figures include goods vehicles which are not subject to carriers' licensing; but they show the licensed vehicles separately and at least agree on this point. There are the same marked fluctuations as the following table shows:
Year Licensed vehicles (thousands) 1964 1,520 1965 1,509 1966 1,477 1967 1,522 1968 1,474 The last figure is taken from the annual reports of the Licensing Authorities for 1967-68 and in common with the other figures reflects the situation at the end of September.
Revised figures Last week, however, a written reply in the House of Commons gave what is described as an "estimated number" of 1,454,000 in September 1968 and of 1,504,000 in September 1967. A footnote indicates that "previously published estimates have been revised" and makes one wonder how long it will be before the truly authentic figures are available.
Although the graph of the goods vehicle totals may zigzag like the temperature chart of a fever patient it is reasonable to suppose that the variations are due to the difficulties of keeping precise records. The staff of the Licensing Authorities have so much other work to do and are not always notified promptly when, for example, a small trader decides to give up running one or more of his vehicles.
What does seem to have been established is that something like a state of equilibrium has been reached. The number of vehicles weighing over 3 tons unladen is going up slowly and steadily. The much larger number of lighter lorries and vans is dropping at about the same rate. This dual process can be seen easily from the statistics over the last five years.
Railways' trend In theory this should be a satisfactory situation. No more vehicles than before are coming on the roads; there may even be fewer. There is a shift towards heavier vehicles which means that the average carrying capacity is going up. They can be used and are being used more intensively. Ministry of Transport estimates are that road transport covered 33,600m ton miles in 1962 and 43,000m ton miles in 1967, an increase of 28 per cent over five years. There were 1,227,000 licensed vehicles in the earlier year and the total in 1967 was very little higher at 1,284,000.
Unfortunately the railways have shown a much less healthy trend. Their ton mileage of 16,100m in 1962 was less than half— and of 13,600m in 1967 less than one-third— of the road figure. It is this kind of statistic which has kept just barely visible on the surface the principle of rail preference or quantity licensing, once the dominant principle in the licensing system but now relegated to a place so far down the queue that the optimists believe it may never be reached.
The road transport statistics also have a relevance to the more pressing principle of quality licensing. They have reached their present level under the guidance of the existing licensing system—or in spite of it as some people might prefer to say. Whatever the influences at work there could be a case for suggesting that the Government ought to have left well alone.
Much of the early thinking on the measure which became the Transport Act 1968 was based on the conclusion by the Geddes Committee that a licensing system was unnecessary. Although the committee considered a wide range of facts and figures and published some of the material as appendices to their report they made no attempt to assess the productivity of the road transport industry as a function of the existing system.
The Transport Act, of course, is not unadulterated Geddes. It turns the lighter vehicles completely loose. On the heavier vehicles it continues to impose a severe regimen and threatens some of them with restrictions far more hampering than they endure at present.
Nevertheless, over most of the field there is to be much greater freedom. If the performance of vehicles as measured by ton miles continues to improve there will be no general cause for complaint Any deterioration is bound to reawaken the suspicion that there was merit after all in the present much-maligned system.