More Light on B.R.S. Fleet
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2,678 Contract-hire Vehicles and 4,000 Parcels Vans for Disposal : B.R.S. Surplus in 1953 Compares with Profits Under Free Enterprise
FURTHER light was thrown on the future composition of the fleet of British Road Services by Mr. G. W. Quick Smith, a member of the Board of Management, in an address to the South Wales and Monmouthshire section of the Institute of Transport, last week. He rearranged, with interesting results, the figures given by the Road Haulage Disposal Board in their first report to the Minister of Transport.
The totals of vehicles owned (36,000), to be retained (3,559) and to be sold (32,441) remained the same, but there were variations in the figures for abnormal indivisible load carriers and contract hire vehicles. The Board's report gave the number of abnormal load carriers owned as 393, and to be retained, 238. Mr: Quick Smith quoted the figures as 404 and 249 respectively, but the-total for disposal (155) remained the same.
The Board mentioned 603 contracthire vehicles, of which 202 were to be kept and 401 sold. Mr. Quick Smith gave the number owned as 2,950, the figure for disposal as 2,678 and the number to be retained as 272. Other figures agreed.
He stated that B.R.S. had 27,020 vehicles for general haulage, etc., of st hich 24,670 would be sold and 2,350 kept. Four thousand vehicles were engaged on parcels work and all would be sold. Big B.R.S. Profit He declared that when the accounts for B.R.S. for last year were published, the surplus would compare favourably with the profit which the acquired undertakings were said to have made in the bumper years immediately before nationalization. [This figure has been estimated at as much as LIM.] But for the changed situation, 1954 would have revealed still more of the potentialities
of B.R.S. .
The 1953 Act did not merely reverse the 1947 Act and restore the prenationalization situation. It heralded a new dispensation with many unpredictable features. The keynote was competition. Even in the new competitive setting, however, there was much scope for road-rail co-operation. Many who were critical of integration would admit that a nationally organized system of road haulage and parcels services had immense advantages. There was a large body of opinion in trade and industry which, although opposed to nationalization and anxious for competition, regretted I h Le h 1,
.-up of B.R.S.
The 1953 Act recognized that there must he some disturbance during the transitional period. It did not place upon the British Transport Commission any greater obligation than to carry on :heir road haulage undertaking without avoidable disturbance to the transport system of the country. Before the end of January there
would have been offered for sale about 1,600 transport units comprising some 10,000 vehicles. The average was six vehicles a unit and in the 1,100 smallest units was as low as n vehicles. This was an important point to bear in mind when considering the future pattern of the industry.
How many more small units were to be "offered and how many were to be formed into large units and companies were questions yet to be decided by the Commission in consultation with the Disposal Board. If 5,000 more vehicles were to be offered in small units, a total of 15,000 would be put up in this way and 4,000 in parcels services, leaving 13,500 to be sold in large units and companies or otherwise, the Commission holding the balance of 3,500. This was a hypothetical analysis.
"It is anyone's guess what the pattern will be when the disposal process is complete," said Mr. Quick Smith. "The Commission's basic fleet of 3,500 vehicles is rather smaller in number (though not in capacity) than that operated by the companies owned by the railway companies prior to the war. If the 13,500 disposable vehicles referred to above were in fact sold in companies or large units, the balance between large and small undertakings would be roughly the same as it was prior to nationalization.
"But this is by no means certain and there is a possibility that there may be fewer of the larger undertakings than previously and that the industry may prove to be even more predominantly one of small units." Influence of C Licensees
In comparing the future with the pattern before nationalization, account must be taken of C-licence vehicles, which had increased from 365,000 in 1938 to 860,000 in September, 1953. The tendency of traders to turn to C licences supported Mr. Quick Smith's conviction that it was neither nationalization nor denationalization, but the feeling of uncertainty which was the most potent factor in the situation. The new shape of the road transport industry, with just over 1m. goods vehicles, was likely to be somewhat as follows: (a) A nationalized fleet of 3,500 vehicles engaged in general haulage, contract hire and the carriage of furniture, liquids in bulk and abnormal indivisible loads, and 15,000 railway collection and delivery vehicles; (b) a national parcels service, privately owned, operating 4,000 vehicles; (c) some 150,000 Aand B-licence vehicles owned by about 50,000 operators. (possibly including larger undertakings
operating between them, at the most, 14,000 vehicles); and (d) nearly 900,000 C-licence vehicles.
Examining the new setting of transport, Mr. Quick Smith did not think that all operators would at once make a bee-line for long-distance traffic. " Most of those who purchase transport units will obviously be interested
in long-distance traffic," he said, "but for the vast majority of unacquirccl operators their objection to the 25-mile restriction has, I think, mostly been their inability to do the occasional longdistance job for a customer whom they served mainly in the short-distance field. k is not a case, I think, of hauliers in chains bursting for freedom to roam the country—for the majority it is more a matter of freedom for a haulier to give a complete service to each of his customers without having to refuse the occasional order for traffic to be carried outside the 25-mile radius."
The change in the licensing provisions made by the 1953 Act was intended to open the door a little wider to facilitate entry into the industry's closed shop—an enlargement of freedom which might not be entirely to the liking of some freedom-lovers.
" But how much wider will the door. in fact, be opened?" asked Mr. Quick Smith. "The rules may be changed, but the referee is the same—and in this case interpretation of the rules is, in the last resort, so largely a matter for the discretion of the referee—the Licensing Authority." Freedom in Charging
Perhaps the most important change was the greater freedom given to the railways in the matter of charges.
The central feature of the 1953 Act was that all forms of transport should freely compete and that the laurels should go to the one which, in a particular case, gave the best service for the lowest cost.
" Are the terms in fact level?" asked Mr. Quick Smith: " And whose business is it to sec that they stay level? These are, to my mind, very pertinent questions. On the other hand, public obligations of some kind may well cling to the railways and there is bound to be pressure of one sort or another that may make it sometimes difficult for them to take some of the drastic action which would be open to an ordinary commercial concern.
On the other hand, the burden of taxation on road transport is a heavy one and can, moreover, be increased— or, less likely, decreased—by a stroke of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pen. Furthermore, the railways provide and maintain their own tracks, whereas hauliers have to rely on the roads which are provided for them and pay through taxation whatever the Chancellor, for fiscal reasons, may ask." ri9