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Road Transport in National Emergency

30th September 1938
Page 33
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Page 33, 30th September 1938 — Road Transport in National Emergency
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

IN a panel which we included last week we referred to the progress made by the Ministry of Transport in working out details of a scheme for using road transport to the greatest national advantage in the event of a serious emergency. Further particulars of this scheme were received just too late for publication in that issue.

The Defence (Road Transport) Committee consists of four leading men in the industry, also a representative of railway-owned road transport and of labour, and the scheme which this Committee has developed is to make the maximum use of the experience and ability of men of goodwill in the industry to obtain the efficient working of transport.

To effect this, the boundaries of the present Traffic Areas have been modified to accord with the plans of the departments controlling Food Defence and Air Raid Precautions. The Chairman of the Traffic Commissioners is assisted by a small advisory committee of operators, each Area being divided into a number of districts, and to each of these, in turn, is assigned an officer of ilie Traffic Commissioner's staff, who is the District Transport Officer. He is, in effect, the executive officer of a District Transport Committee of operators, on which will fall the main burden of disposing of the available transport in the district to the best national advantage.

Keeping in Touch with Small Operators.

It is impossible, however, for this committee to keep in day-to-day touch with smaller operators running one or two vehicles, and these will be encouraged to form temporary working "groups" or voluntary combinations under a group manager chosen by themselves. Such a manager must be a man to whom the district committee can look with every confidence.

Until the district committees are set up, owners approached by the Defence Service or organizations connected with Food Defence, Air Raid Precautions or hospitals, as to the use of their vehicles in case of emergency, should give them all the assistance possible, on the clear understanding that when the district committees are set up it may be necessary to modify the arrangements which have been made provisionally without full knowledge of all the demands which the Government may have to make.

This scheme provides, first, for what is termed a "cautionary stage," in which the district committee will act by way of advice and assistance, but in Certain circumstances and in particular districts it may be necessary to switch over rapidly to a second Stage of "permit working." Under this, full use may be made of any powers given to the Minister to prohibit the use of any goods vehicle, unless it be employed in accordance with the conditions of a permit given by the district transport officer on the advice of his committee.

Vehicles Must be Available Immediately.

These officers have been instructed to take all possible steps to avoid interference with vehicles which are employed on essential services. Vehicles earmarked for A.R.P. duties should be those which would not, after declaration of a national emergency, be operating in places from which they could not be at once recalled.

Another communication from the Ministry of Transport deals with exemptions from the. conditions of carriers' licences in cases where vehicles are offered to local authorities for training purposes connected with A.R.P., and which, in some instances, would, in the ordinary way, involve a breach of such conditions.

The exemptions do not cover the use of vehicles carrying articles for A.R.P. purposes in the normal course of business, but only when in use under the instructions of the local authority, for the carriage of A.R.P. equipment in the course of training or exercises. In the event of the need wising from the mass evacuation of population from centres, road transport would play a large part.; For -example, the chief coach and bus-owning concerns in the Metropolitan Area have been called into consulta tion, and it has been arranged that a large proportion of the fleet of coaches could quiCkly be converted into ambulances for dealing with hospital patients or sick people at their homes. Many vehicles would undoubtedly be employed at centres from which dispersal by road could be effected fairly rapidly.

So far as the emergency arrangements for organizing vehicular services in the Traffic Areas . are concerned, whilst we are glad to see that something is being done, yet such arrangements should have been made long ago, for a scheme on the lines of that now adopted was put forward by one of the road-transport associations nearly three years ago.

Freeing the Streets for Transport

LONDON TRANSPORT, and bus drivers in particular, will be glad at the decision of the Minister of Transport to make the "No Waiting" regulations, which have already been in force to an experimental degree, apply to many main thoroughfares in Central London north of the Thames, but excluding the City.

. The new regulations are designed to relieve traffic congestion caused by standing vehicles, and, subject to consideration of any representations that may be received, will be brought into operation for an experimental period.

The "No Waiting" rule will be introduced in the chief thoroughfares throughout a very large area, and an interesting feature is that the rule will apply in all side streets for a distance of 120 ft. from their junctions with the thoroughfare' s affected, which number 104, including the few in which the restrictions already apply. The area affected will be bound by Hammersmith, Euston Road and High Street, Shoreditch.

During the prescribed hours of 12 noon to 7 p.m. from Mondays to Fridays and 12 noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, passenger vehicles will be permitted to stop only long enough for passengers to board or alight and to deal with personal luggage. Goods vehicles requiring to deliver or collect goods will have their stopping times limited to 20 minutes. This will not, however, apply to vehicles used in connection with the carriage of furniture or for building operations,• municipal vehicles and fire-engines employed for purposes of urgent necessity, and taxicabs on authorized ranks.

Restrictions on the delivery of beer and fuel will operate between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., whilst restrictions on reversing, advertising in streets, and on the carriage of exceptional loads (which are already subject to restrictions within a threemile radius of Charing Cross and in a few places outside that area) will be extended to cover the controlled streets.

For the convenience of drivers affected by the new restrictions, 54 additional parking places will be arranged in side streets, and the capacity of• four large existing parks increased, but they will have a time limit of one hour, whilst most will be available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and, in some instances, in the West End of London up to midnight.


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