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Delay and decay threaten urban commerce

2nd June 1972, Page 32
2nd June 1972
Page 32
Page 33
Page 32, 2nd June 1972 — Delay and decay threaten urban commerce
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Distribution man pinpoints growing delivery problems and opposes compulsory transhipment depots

• "The distributor is already living with road congestion, is scheduling against it and, of course, we all pay for it. Every penny that it costs is added to the price of the goods transported."

It was with these words that Mr Robert Beckham, distribution controller, RHM Foods Ltd, on Wednesday began his paper "Moving goods and supplies and managing distribution" when he addressed the Chartered Institute of Transport at London University's Imperial College.

"It would, of course," said Bob Beckham. "be entirely mistaken to suggest that the countless traffic management measures brought into operation over the past decade have been designed with malice aforethought against goods vehicle operators. Perhaps it is the combined effect of such measures on operational and cost performance that induces the feeling of paranoia among so many of our distribution managers and their drivers."

The speaker then examined some of the "constraints" imposed on the movement of goods that have evolved from measures intended to improve traffic flows in congested urban areas. One of the older of these methods was the one-way street which, while it assisted flow, militated against the delivery man, especially in those streets that carried several traffic lanes. To get his vehicle, or even to hand-truck his goods, from one street side to the other was often so hazardous that he was compelled to drive all round the system to enter the street on the other side.

Time limits While "no waiting" rules did not generally prohibit off and on loading, there were usually time limits and a driver seeking to deliver heavy and bulky products frequently had to depend on his ability to find a sympathetic policeman.

The proposed ban on all stopping within 20 yards of road junctions in built-up areas would, said Mr Beckham, in effect mean imposing intersection bans at all road junctions in urban centres. The FTA had shown that in one High Street 1080 yards of kerbside space available for goods deliveries would be reduced to 291 yards. Nor should it be forgotten that the vast majority of city pubs were situated on street corners.

Urban clearways restricting loading and unloading to designated hours meant that for vehicles working a full day, and unable to avoid peak hours altogether, there was no alternative but to find, if possible, off-main street parking — followed by onerous and costly hand trucking along the pavement. The Americans, Mr Beckham suggested, would probably call this process the pedestrianization of the delivery driver!

After speaking of the restrictions and constraints that bus lanes imposed on goods deliveries, Mr Beckham went on to talk about the effects of shop hours. The immediate result of the passing of the Shops Closing Act (giving assistants a full day off) was, he said, a varied pattern of shop closing, often in the same streets and in the same trade! Retail trade resistance to deliveries on busy Fridays still further squeezed the operator — in many cases into a 3k-day week.

In 1966 the Food Manufacturers Federation, the speaker recalled, ran an experimental Out of Hours Deliveries scheme which was followed by a second experiment initiated by the Freight Group of the Transport Co-ordinating Council for London. Regrettably, said Mr Beckham, the initial impetus of the schemes was not maintained and a "chicken and egg" situation developed in which retailers were deterred from extending the scope of the scheme because they could not foresee sufficient volume of deliveries to justify manning the smaller branches during the evening, and the suppliers because the failure to increase the number of outlets and total volume meant that vehicles could not be fully utilized. evening's workload, particularly for individual branches.

I=1 Instances arose of drivers "jumping the gun" and arriving at the shops before 6 pm. El Because even the larger retail organizations were unable to open the hundreds of smaller branches in London. suppliers' vehicles were running greater distances between calls, making scheduling extremely difficult.

1:1 The costs did not justify the operation: apart from the additional cost in overtime or premium payments to shop and driving staff, the effect on vehicle costs was adverse.

The speaker illustrated, by means of the accompanying table, the importance on costs of the ratio between delivery and running time in the operation of urban delivery vehicles.

Mr Beckham went on to note some additional obstacles that had come into the reckoning since the London experiments, as follows: — (a) Public objection to the noise created by vehicles, shops and warehouses working at night had increased as part of the mounting pressures for the preservation of urban amenity in all its forms.

(b) The concept of evening work, which was the main alternative to all-night work, was unattractive to drivers and unions because of its anti-social nature (no television, pubs, cinemas, etc) and was, therefore, likely to cost more in terms of shift premiums.

(c) The general inflation of wages in relation to other cost elements had now made out-of-hours work very expensive to the operator who, as a result, now needed to achieve even higher vehicle performances to break even.

One way in which out-of-hours deliveries could develop was for organizations distributing from company-owned or controlled sources to captive retail outlets to employ "bonded" drivers entrusted with keys to shop premises, and this overcame the security problem.

Transhipment centres Among more recent ideas for overcoming the general distribution problem, said Mr Beckham, was the concept of transhipment centres which was discussed from the dual objectives of integrating supplies from several sources into a single delivery, and from the theory that smaller vehicles, operating from the periphery of a town into the centre, would reduce overall congestion. The cost benefits of integrating several traffic streams in order to improve the ratio of delivery to running time were shown in the cost per ton table and could not, the speaker insisted, be ignored. Since it was delivery-time capacity rather than physical capacity that determined the economy of urban distribution, the "smaller" vehicles were still likely to be in the 8-10 pallet /ton range if a second journey from the periphery was to be avoided. It was probable that 100 vehicles of this size in the city's streets were preferable to 200 of smaller size.

"You may think," observed Mr Beckham, "it is not a bad idea, in a free economy, when discussing distribution costs and methods, to start from a recognition that the consumer's freedom of choice is the first essential. If this means that our problem is thereby so much less easy to solve, it is, in my view, small enough price to pay. Transhipment then — yes — but let the incentive towards this development be the more powerful one of commercial advantage rather than legislative compulsion."

Mr Beckham ended his paper with a look at road pricing and urban networks. Of the former he said that the penalty for pricing goods vehicles off the roads would be reflected in the price of the goods transported, and paid for by the consumers of the products.

Off-street loading

Traffic management measures, town planning, provision of land for off-street loading and unloading, changes in systems methods and technology — all would make their contribution; but all would be more effective if they were supported by a comprehensive and complementary system of interconnected roads of a higher standard than the secondary all-purpose city streets.

"There is a distinct danger," the speaker concluded, "that in our fear of declining environmental standards, we may be condemning ourselves to that which we fear, in that the penalties of delay and indecision in tackling the problem on all fronts will be, at best, to see environmental conditions become intolerable and, at worst, to witness the decay of central urban commercial activity.

The conference chairman was Prof Sir Colin Buchanan and the welcoming address was given by Mr D. E. A. Pettit (NFC chairman). Dr T. M. Ridley, directorgeneral Tyneside PTE, delivered the morning session paper on "Moving people in urban areas."


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