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Page 60
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Keeping ahead of Jones
PART of the lure of the Western lies in the • pursuit of the heroine or some other vulnerable character by a gang of outlaws while the sherifrs posse rides to the rescue from another direction. The minx often seems to act in such a way as to bring the situation down on her own head.
An emotion similar to that aroused may account for the interest shown by some of the newspapers in rates increases by hauliers. There is all the excitement of the chase strengthened by speculation on whether the Prices and Incomes Board or the Centre for Interfirm Comparison will get there first.
Policy in ruins There has been a flurry of announcements by regions and groups. There is nothing surprising in this. Costs have gone up on every side and hauliers have had to meet several items that do not affect the general public. Wage claims have spread across industry, commerce and public services. The Government's prices and incomes policy lies in ruins.
However, an agreement was reached some time ago between the Board and the Road Haulage Association. Few people can now remember what it was and fewer still really care. The main consequence is that every time hauliers make a statement on rates they must experience in some degree the feelings of the sinner. They may believe that somewhere there is a dedicated servant of the public who holds each statement up to the light in the hope of finding a chink through which the Board can enter.
. If the Board is sensible it will resist the invitation. Already it has wasted four good reports on road haulage without helping hauliers or their customers or its own reputation. It has hardly disguised its opinion that on the whole it thinks hauliers a poor lot for their inability to calculate to two places of decimals.
For this reason among others hauliers would prefer not to have their activities brought to the Board's attention. There will be recriminations and another critical report for the Press to savour_ Not that this will make much difference. Road haulage rates 'have to go up if operators are to remain in business and fulfil their new obligations to the law. No embargo can be effective.
The thrill of the chase remains. The haulier is lacking in imagination if he does not feel Mr Aubrey Jones breathing down his neck every time he mentions rates and couples them with a date. He can only hope to escape capture until the RHA costs and productivity scheme comes to fruition.
There will then be a series of cost indices derived from an unimpeachable source. In face of this barrage the Board ought to retire defeated and at last leave the haulier to his own devices under the control of a higher power. The customers also ought to open their coffers and pay whatever is required.
Nobody supposes events will work out as smoothly as this. Things will go on very much as before. The advantage of CAPS is that it will increase hauliers' knowledge of what may be called their real costs and will encourage them to look for the items that are costing too much. If there is any effect on rates it is likely to be in the direction of an increase. Once hauliers find out what their services cost they will want to get the proper price.
Preoccupation with themselves has been encouraged by the threat of the Board lurking ready to pounce. Without this handicap the survey could have been conducted on a broader basis. It could have incorporated the customer.
When it comes to the point the haulier is not only concerned with rates. He also wants traffic. In his attempt to get it he is often competing with the customer's own vehicles. This may happen even more frequently under operators' licensing when the customer will be free to enter road haulage.
Closer links ought to be established. What is often happening at present is that the customer—that is to say his transport manager or the equivalent—is taking his forthcoming role very seriously. He is avid for learning and courses cannot be arranged frequently enough to meet his demands.
He is looking ahead to the transport manager's licence and will seek to qualify at the highest possible level. Once this happens he will almost be committed to running a fleet. His other managerial functions may even take a subordinate place.
If there is some truth in this picture it is strange that hauliers should be content merely to watch the process taking place. Their aim ought to be to give the customer a different idea of the best way in which to use his talents. The last thing he should want to do is to hold a transport manager's licence.
The alternative The alternative—not much better—is to arrange for somebody else in the organization to be the licence holder. Steering between fear of breaking the law and the obligation to carry out instructions the chosen vessel might often acquire an unwelcome power by choosing the right moment to disobey. He would be able to attract notice by appealing over the head of his immediate superior.
Possession of a fleet of one's own is no longer the safeguard that it was. It could bring vexation if anything goes wrong and the Licensing Authority starts to make investigations; if there is a shortage of properly qualified drivers; if the licensed transport manager leaves and it is difficult to find a replacement; and for many other causes.
The change has not escaped notice. Trade and industry and the organizations representing them are thinking more than ever in terms of transport as a whole and of making use of the widest possible range of choice. An influence apart from the growing obligations on road operators may be the abolition of the benefits as well as the drawbacks of the C licence.
'Real' costs In this situation the customer as well as the haulier may be thinking about his "real" costs_ If these were analysed they would often be found much higher than the customer imagined. There would be an inducement for him to think of turning over more traffic to the professional carrier.
Left to themselves hauliers would possibly have hit upon the CAPS idea as a means of acquiring respectability for their rates announcements. They might also have found some way of introducing the scheme to trade and industry. It is surprising that C-licence holders do not make enough stir about their own transport costs. They have to bear the costs to the same extent as hauliers. Their response has too often been a stoical silence leaving the impression that a cost increase is insignificant or that their efficiency enables them to absorb it.
The customer knows that the transport of his goods is costing him money whether he uses his own vehicles or not. The aim of hauliers should be to bring the matter to the front of his mind by suggesting that he may be wasting money where he thinks he is _economizing.
Nobody else is likely to hire this service. Even the wideflung empire of the Road Transport Industry Training Board excludes operators on own-account. It certainly did not occur to the Prices and Incomes Board, when investigating the costs of hauliers, to look also into the costs of their customers.
Obviously own-account transport is most suitable for much of the traffic carried that way. There remains a substantial volume which it would be more economical and more efficient to send by public carrier. The customer will need some persuasion. The details of recent cost increases may help him to make up his mind.
On paper the C-licence holder is most affected by the new scale of licence fees. He has hardly noticed having to pay 30s a vehicle for a five-year licence. In fact the confusion over C-licence statistics is largely due to the fact that he has not bothered to notify the Licensing Authority and claim a refund when he has put the vehicle off the road. Now he will have to pay 120 to cover the same period. It is this kind of experience that may make him look at other possibilities with new eyes.