FREE RIDES
Page 44
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ON the fringe of the endless discussions on the subject
of transport there is a set of extremists who hold the opinion that travel, and perhaps other transport facilities, should be made available to the public free of charge, A strong element in the formation of this opinion is the not ignoble philosophy that each should give according to his means and take according to his needs. Another underlying feeling may be that transport, like medicine, is necessary but nasty, and could therefore well be dispensed in the same way as other state benefits are doled out to the nation.
Except in one or two special cases, such as the sporadic demand for cheap or free transport in the north of Scotland, there is nothing in the least resembling a pressure group First and foremost there is an idea, to which a number of people happen to subscribe. It may not perhaps matter greatly to them that the idea is impracticable in the present social system. It could work only if complete control were established over the actions of the individual. This means, in effect, that passengers and goods might travel for nothing, but they would have to go where they were sent.
The proposal would lead to chaos anywhere else but in a totalitarian community. The law of supply _ and demand would no longer work. Unhampered by any thought of expense, people would find themselves wanting to travel, or to send their goods, far more frequently than they do at present. They would complain if a service were not available, and there would be no sensible way of deciding whether they were economically justified in their demands.
The advocates of free transport might be prepared to argue on some of these points. The discussion would be to little purpose, for there is no likelihood that the proposal would be adopted. What is more interesting is the attitude of mind that makes it possible for responsible people to put it forward. Why do they choose transport as something for which there should be no payment? The suggestion is never made that there should be free fish and chips, free football pools or free caviare. Why should it be thought that the public had a special right, in effect, to free petrol?
AS has often been said, transport is a service. [t has no substance and cannot be weighed or measured. This makes for difficulty in appreciating that transport has any great importance. Another platitude, embodied every year in unavailing pleas to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is that a transport element enters into the cost of every commodity, and makes that entry on an average seven times, according to one calculation.
Possibly the choice is symbolic of a number widely supposed to have occult qualities. The Chancellor may believe what he is told, even if he does not allow it to influence his plans. However many times the public may have heard it, they have great difficulty in really appreciating it. To them it is abstract and remote, like the phrases of politicians. They see the point when it is made, but they do not remember it. The transport element is not something that can be apprehended by the senses. It does nothing to improve a product, and indeed may sometimes have the opposite effect.
It is tempting to think that basically, perhaps below the I 0 conscious level, this is the public attitude. Supporting evidence is clearly available in the furious reaction to any ploposal to increase fares. Naturally, nobody likes to pay more for anything and there are invariably complaints when prices go up, whatever the commodity, and whatever the rate of increase. But nothing can match the indignation of the man in the street when he is told that it will cost him more to travel, even if the extra fare is comparatively small.
There may be obvious reasons for the rise, such as a change in taxation, and the fact may be prominently displayed by the transport operators. Road transport would certainly have been much cheaper had the rate of taxation remained at the wartime level. This kind of argument is of little avail, whatever steps the operators take to bring it to the customers' attention. Even on the goods transport side, where the customer is considerably more alive to the true situation, hauliers seldom find it easy to get the rates increase that the situation demands, and frequently are glad to settle for less.
THE illusion that transport ought to cost nothing or very
little, because it is intangible, may be encouraged by the false conclusion drawn from their own experience by many car owners and perhaps a few C licence holders. They may genuinely believe that the transport they have provided for themselves is not merely a greater convenience to them, but is actually far cheaper than anything they can get from the public services. Such an impression may be fostered by what can plainly be seen of the way in which those services are sometimes used.
Free or subsidized transport is already provided in a variety of ways. The shopkeeper may deliver goods without making a charge; and for many commodities there is a
standard price all over the country which obviously does not take into account the distance from the factory. . On
many passenger services, cheap fares and other concessions are given to certain sections of the public. Operators who set out to provide a comprehensive network expect that they will make a loss on some of the routes, and hope to recoup themselves from the more profitable journeys which they undertake.
All these factors, most of them -necessary and good, combine to strengthen the impression that transport ought to be cheap. At the other end of the subsidy scale, there is the enormous and growing annual deficit of the railways, and on a more modest scale the rather high incidence of bankruptcies among hauliers,' In these statistics isclear evidence that some transport users are getting something for nothing, and that in most cases this is being done at the expense of the public.
One or two factors may be helping to make public opinion more aware of the true value of transport. The railways notably are trying to bring their charges up to an economical level and at the same time to trim away services that can never -pay. It is hoped they will also move in the same direction as those haulier's who are trying to point out to trade and industry that either a cure or a payment will have to be found for terminal delays. It might well
be that the familiar spectacle of lorries and wagons standing idle without apparently causing any difficulty has done more than anything else to lix the mistaken public impression of transport costs as negligible.