Organizing Transport for Efficiency
Page 25
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• RECENTLY there was a reference in
lAthese columns to the alleged unfair use of Meat Pool vehicles and it was stated that, with the falling off of the meat ration, Pool vehicles were being employed on general haulage which was being abstracted from hauliers. This obviously raises the question as to what should be clone with Meat Pool vehicles which are surplus to the need for which they were originally chartered by the Ministry crf Food.
At the time of the introduction of meat rationing and the Meat and Livestock Control Scheme, the whole method of distribution was revolutionized. No, longer was Smithfield the central point of distribution and consequently the fleets of vehicles which were engaged in this job would have found themselves without work had not a scheme been drawn up by their trade association whereby their services could be transferred to the provinces to undertake the distribution of meat from the new depots. In many parts of the provinces there was an undeniable shortage of meat-transport vehicles, and to this extent the rearrangement was of ,value to the community, but it must be borne in mind that it was of equal or greater value to the meat hauliers, who were thereby enabled to continue to operate their vehicles.
In these circumstances, and admitting the value of the scheme td the community, it is suggested that there can be no logical reason why the owners of meat vehicles should be entitled to any 'greater consideration than any other section of the industry. There is little or no likelihood of the meat ration being increased and it would therefore appear that many meat vehicles will carry no 'more meat for the duration of the war. What, then, is tobe done with them? Many of them are small vehicle, designed for. distriliution to shops and, as such, are not suitable for the economic handling of general traffic.
Meat Hauliers Should Offer Vehicles
The obvious course would be for meat hauliers to offer their vehicles on charter to the Minister in the same way and on the same terms as general hauliers, and that such as are suitable and necessary for the purpose for which , they are required should be accepted. Any which were in excess of the need for meat transport Would be accepted Joe general haulage if found suitable, hut all, whether on meat or on general traffics, would be administered through and by Area Road Haulage Officers. At the ..,moment it would appear that meat hauliers have acquired a vested interest and that there is an idea in some -quarters that the Government is, at least, morally bound to continue to charter indefinitely all the vehicles in the Meat Pool, regardless.,of the actual meat-transport requirements and of the suitability of the vehicles for general traffics:
The Government's Road Haulage Scheme has now been functioning for It may be that sufficient experience of the working of the Scheme has now been gained to enable a review of its operation to be made and to assess whether the present system is the best that could have been evolved in the national interest. Admittedly the Only yardstick that should be applied is that of national interest ; but there is now no doubt that, in spite of the expressed desire of Pool Management Committees to do all that is possible to ensure that those hauliers who carried the traffic in the past should continue to carry it, the schethe is diverting many traffics into fresh channels to the detriment of the hauliers who have been carrying them for many months. Government traffics are not the only ones which are affected and A.R.H.O.s are empowered to canvass for any traffic which is needed to balance the loading of chartered or pool vehicles.
Second thoughts are said to be best, but many in the industry are wondering whether the Minister was well advised to modify his original scheme whereby he proposed to take over specific fleets of vehicles, lock, stock and barrel. It is suggested that the time is now ripe, in view of petrol and rubber shortages, to eliminate every possible source of. dead running and inefficient working and to this end for the Minister to take over entirely the movement of all goods by road. For this he would need to take over fleets of vehicles to act as focal depots, rather than thepresent system of obtaining odd vehicles on charter from here, there and everywhere. There would, of course, be the right of standing outside the scheme, but there would be little object in this if the sole source of traffic were the Minister. In view of the fact that the industry is composed of so many small units, it is suggested that smaller operators should be attached to the larger fleets in so far as administration is concened.
In order to simplify accountancy, the Minister might deride to carry all traffic at flat rates, in the same way as the Postmaster General carries all mails at flat rates regardless of the distance carried, but this might have repercussions on economic working, by encouraging the transport of goods over unduly long mileages. This, however, could easily be overcome by zoning. , Short-term Charter of C-licensed Vehicles Where transport needs were such that the existing supply of Aand Blicensed vehicles was temporarily inadequate, C-licensed vehicles could be taken over on short-term charter, added to the ,focal depots and administered by them. This would save considerable duplication of control and the dislocation which arises when unco-ordinated vehicles are suddenly switched into the field of hireand-reward transport.
As the scheme developed it might be found advantageous to use the machinery of the Regional Road and Rail Committees to allocate traffic as between road and rail, eventually bringing in the canal interests with a view to their possibilities being fully War-time experience appears to indicate that the Minister's Scheme could be used effectively in conjunction with rail movements. At the moment there is often considerable congestion at certain stations by the arrival, almost out of the blue, of anything up to 300 or 400 tons of food and other traffics at one time. The railways have insufficient facilities to clear quantities of this magnitude and they generally throw on to the Department concerned the onus of clearing the wagons, It is suggested that it should be a function ofthe Operations Branch, as reorganized, to keep in touch with all rail movements and be responsible for clearing wagons upon arrival. In this respect experience indicates that greater efficiency often results if consignments are not sent through into congested centres and railheads, but are stopped at convenient, adjacent rural sidings. A mile or two more in a read vehicle is immaterial, as compared with delays due to congestion in busy yards.
The foregoing are points which are put forward as a basis for discussion. They are not intended to cover the whole field of possible modification to the scheme.