Political Commentary By JANUS
Page 56
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The Smaller, the Better
THE problem of the proper size has been one of the many preoccupations of transport experts. The frequent grave discussions over the past two years concerning the size of transport units are a case in point. It seems a pity from this angle that the careful calculations are being obscured by the frequency with which the buyers of units resort to the practice of the assignment of vehicles to other people.
It is almost too easy these days to suggest that too great a size is inefficient and likely to come to no good. The saurians are extinct, as if Nature herself had drawn a line to indicate that mere bulk was a dead end. The pyramids of the Pharaohs still stand, but where are the Pharaohs? The temptation is obvious to carry this line of reasoning into other spheres of life and to suggest, for example, that there is an optimum size that an industry or business undertaking should not exceed.
Proof is not easy to find. The four main line railways were thought in some quarters to be too large, and when the four were made into one there was a tendency to blame any subsequent shortcomings upon the increase in size. The faults may have been exaggerated, or there Way have been other reasons, such as nationalization.
The 1953 Transport Act provided for the preparation of a scheme to reorganize the railways. The scheme now submitted by the British Transport Commission and laid before Parliament has been commended by the late Minister of Transport as making possible a "proper degree of decentralization of management and control." Area authorities are to be set up, one for each of the present six regions in the first instance. Further plans are being worked out. It is hoped that when they are put into effect railway users will have a more direct and rapid contactwith genuine authority, the staff will feel less remote from management, and there will be more effective supervision on the spot.
Not Much Done There may be doubts about the effectiveness of the proposals. The power of the Commission will remain absolute. They alone are to appoint the persons constituting the area authorities, and one or more of those persons will be members of the Commission. The authorities will serve for two years, and the members will be part-time. Not a great deal has been done, therefore, to reduce the Commission's scope of operation, which many of their critics have thought too large and comprehensive.
One interesting proposal in the new scheme is that the Commission should have power to delegate to an area authority functions not necessarily concerned with railway operation. An authority could thus be given the right to take some part in the work of British Road Services, although the ultimate reduction of their fleet from 35,000 to 3,500 takes away much of the strength of the argument for decentralization.
Operators with experience of large haulage undertakings before nationalization often had definite ideas on the maximum number of vehicles in an efficient fleet. The figure of 300 was sometimes quoted. Demands from customers made it necessary in several cases to increase the fleet beyond that figure, but the operator was reluc 1322 tant. There are probably at present no fleets of that size outside the Commission. Some large fleets may be built up as a result of disposal, and there will once again be arguments as to whether a haulage business can be too large.
In the meantime, it may be interesting to note the results of an investigation into a very different industry. An analysis of the behaviour of coal workers shows a definite connection between the size of a pit and the frequency of absence from work and of accidents. For example, where the number of men employed in a pit was 50 or fewer there were 63.5 accidents per 100,000 man-shifts. The rate rose steadily with the size of pit, until it reached 166.6, nearly three times as much, for the comparatively small number of pits with over 3,000 men each.
Rate of Absenteeism As the whole industry was nationalized, there was no room for a political argument over the figures. Care was taken to check other factors, such as the tendency of the large mines to be farther down. When all such points were taken into account, the results remained the same, and the correspondence was equally exact between size and the Tate of absenteeism. An attempt was made to extend the inquiry into a group of stores belonging to the same retail organization. Although the investigation was not carried sufficiently far to be conclusive, the investigators were reasonably satisfied that " workers go absent for one reason or another proportionately more frequently in large concerns than they do in small concerns."
It is not easy to estimate whether the size of a pit has any relation to output. There is some evidence that the smaller pit produces proportionately more. This would bear out the results of the inquiry into accidents and absence from work; the extent of these is an indication of the morale of the workers, which is itself an important factor in the rate of production.
Somebody may one day like to make a similar survey of road transport. On the passenger side, the size of undertakings is known, and on the goods side it could be found out. Even the small transport business keeps a careful check on damage to its vehicles. The collection and 'analysis of other information might be tedious, but no more so than those on the recent survey on road goods transport. An investigation into the morale of workers, as affected by the size of the undertaking employing them, might be made the next task for the Ministry of Transport's team of statisticians.
We hear a good deal about the accident-prone driver. It would be a change to learn something of the accident prone undertaking. The general allegation is that workers in B.R.S. are not so content as elsewhere, not so much because their firm is nationalized as because it is too huge for them to have a personal interest in it. On the other hand, it is suggested that, possibly because of the standard of maintenance, there are fewer accidents involving B.R.S. vehicles. An inquiry into such matters would not stop the arguments completely, but might reveal additional information on the importance of being the right size.