'Crystal balls like pumpkins'
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To Mr. Peter Mase field, chairman of the British Airports Authority, the real world is full of these. But, in his view, difficulties are merely an inspiring challenge. In calling for a systems approach to transport decision making he put his finger on an international problem.
TRANSPORT, like peace, is indivisible. Developments in one sector of transport vitally affect other sectors in the short—or long term. Forecasts of the future are often confounded by unforeseen developments. Invention or technology may offer exciting investment opportunities to government agencies or private investors in transport— with possibly adverse effects on traditional carriers. Inadequate attention paid to the effect of major changes in transport operations on people may frustrate their carefully planned implementation. This was touched on last week by Mr. Tony Wedgwood Benn, Minister of Technology, when he opened the conference "The Container and the User" arranged in conjunction with the International Freight Container and Container Handling Exhibition.
It is not often that London is host city for two major transport conferences in the same week. Clashing, for two of its three days, with the Container Exhibition, the Conference on World Airports (sponsored by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Institute of Transport, the British Airports Authority and the American Society of Civil Engineers) might seem to be of marginal interest, at best, to the road transport industry.
This, I think, would be a short-sighted view. Modern international airports play such a vital role in national economies —London's Heathrow airport handled almost 10 per cent by value of the UK's overseas trade last year—that surface transport interests ignore the expansion of air transport—both goods and passengers—at their peril. (How many road transport people know that Heathrow is the third largest cargo port in the UK and that in terms of value of cargo handled it narrowed the gap between Heathrow and the seaports of London and Liverpool last year? The value of imports, exports and re-exports handled at Heathrow in 1968, amounted to almost £1,400m.)
Exaggerated claims
Every new form of transport attracts at .least a platoon and often a regiment of publicists to sing its praises. It is arguable that containerization would progress just as quickly with rather fewer publicity fanfares. Certainly, some of the exaggerated claims made in the early days of the system are beginning to come home to roost: When Mr. A. G. Jones (Mars Ltd.) complained at the Earls Court conference that containers were not as cheap or as simple as they could be, that documentation was too complicated, operators too conventional, and his freight rates to New York only gave a derisory 5 per cent reduction over conventional cargo movement, his call for jam today—not five or 10 years' hence—was a popular call, not answered effectively by container service operators.
Speakers at transport conferences often find difficulty in refraining from improbable speculation. Mr. John C. Koster, vice-president, Container Exchange Corporation, New York City, whose subject at Earls Court was "Protecting Cargo in Containers" claimed that "By early 1971 the average container ship afloat will carry over 1,200 20ft boxes, while those operating on long sea routes will average 1,700 containers. Within five years, 40-knot nuclear container ships, carrying over 4,000 containers could be a reality. Moreover, in 1970 the Boeing 747 and Lockheed L500 will be flying ISO vans from one hemisphere to another in a matter of hours. Meanwhile, container trains over five miles long will deliver goods overnight to destinations 1,000 miles beyond their port of entry."
Unbalanced loaning
I suspect that almost all of Mr. Koster's above-quoted statements, some of them quite categorical, will not be justified in the event. Today, in 1969, many containers are carried on short sea routes on vessels of a few hundred tons carrying 20 or 30 containers. If the "average" container ship afloat is to carry over 1,200 20ft boxes "by early 1971" a great many very highcapacity container ships will have to be in commission by then. The problem of unbalanced loading—Mr. Koster must know that it costs almost as much to ship empty containers as full ones—is most unlikely to be solved within the next two years. Other unit-loading methods employing much less capital may be preferred by industry.
So much capital has been poured into containerization already that anything is possible, even "40-knot nuclear container ships carrying over 4,000 containers" but I fear that the capital to build such ships, and the design "knowhow", will not be available within five years; even if it were many of us could think of better uses for the money in solving land transport problems.
As to Mr. Koster's confident assertions that the Boeing 747 and Lockheed L500 "will be flying ISO vans from one hemisphere to another in a matter of hours," this will no doubt be technically feasible between any two airports with appropriate ground handling facilities, but it is highly unlikely to occur on any scale. For it to be economic in an air freight sense ultra-lightweight containers weighing perhaps as little as llb per cu.ft of container volume would have to be available—steel and aluminium 20ft boxes weigh three or four times as much.
Some years off
Granted Mr. Koster's thesis is technically practicable it only becomes economically feasible when high-value cargo is available in quantities sufficient to fill a lot of 20ft—or larger—ISO containers. I have yet to meet any informed person in the air cargo business who maintains that highvalue cargo on the scale necessary to fill hundreds if not thousands of 20ft x 8ft air freight boxes on regular balanced traffic routes across the Atlantic or elsewhere is likely for several years. An occasional "publicity" operation is not to be compared with a regular service.
At the World Airports conference some delegates advocated all-freight airports but the balance of informed opinion, voiced by Mr. Peter Masefield, chairman of the British Airports Authority, in a brilliant summing up of the conference, was that such airports would not be viable for some years. Because the bulk of air freight was carried in the belly-holds of passenger aircraft it had to be processed and handled at passenger airports. Only with the development of sufficient large-load cargo movements would all-freight airports be possible. The advent of Jumbo jets—capable of carrying a batch of even 40ft ISO containers—would not speed up the development of all-freight airports—cargo to fill them was not yet available. And any all-freight airport would be of little practical value until it was developed enough to he operating a multiplicity of services to many destinations. Air cargo, like container and conventional cargo, is subject to transhipment requirements: that is why, probably for the next 10 years, most air cargo will continue to fly in passenger aircraft holds on regular routes offering transhipment facilities to connecting international services.
Although special air-freight airports are unlikely to be seen in the next decade there will be a useful growth in the dispatch of bulk-loads of 25-50 or more tons as full plane loads. Mr. J. H. Mahoney, of Seaboard World Airlines, stressed that the history of other modes of freight transport showed that this was the area of real growth for air freight: certainly, it is the area that ambitious general haulage contractors should not overlook. In conjunction with air freight operators, the astute road haulier should surely be canvassing any customer making high value /low weight products for door-to-door full-plane-load shipments from anywhere to anywhere. How many British road hauliers have working agreements with US or Canadian truckers? The removals industry does so.
Coach operators specializing in passenger work based on airport traffic will not need to be reminded of the potential of the fast-expanding air tourist industry. With the prospect in the early seventies of perhaps six 350-500 passenger aircraft landing within the space of an afternoon large numbers of touring coaches would have to be deployed—for many air package tours will include a substantial element of coach travel. Coach operators must be prepared to process documentation and probably to unitize the passenger luggage of their—or the package tour operator's—customers. Only in this way will the vast human crocodiles be catered for. Not all air! coach tours will start at London airport. Scottish and Welsh terminals may be used.
Although the Roskill Commission inquiring into the siting of the third London airport is only half-way through its unenviable task, the road haulage industry—and in the short term its tipper members—ought to be speculating, with the rest of the population of the Home Counties, as to the decision. When the Government decides on the site in two or three years from now some tipper operators will enjoy a veritable bonanza of work lasting for several years. Clearly, the site chosen will affect the entire road haulage industry, yielding major benefits to some operators and perhaps substantially increasing operating costs to others. Without wishing to parade any hobby (or sea) horses I suspect that it would not be to the advantage of the road haulage industry as a whole if the airport is sited in an estuary 50 miles or more from London.
Third London Airport Mr. Peter Masefield, pointed out last week that an estuarial site would cost twice as much as an inland airport and a floating site—advocated by some Utopians—would cost eight times as much. As the man responsible for making public airports pay there is little doubt that Mr. Masefield favours an inland site. (The new Paris airport will be only 12 miles from the city.) It is, perhaps, not too soon for the Ministry of Transport and the RHA and FTA to look at the road transport cost-effects of the siting of the third London Airport. If the balance of advantage is a fine one the views of our industry must be taken into account.
What does the third London airport involve for the hard-pressed tipper men? In the recently published annual report of the British Airports Authority there is a fascinating Outline Specification for the Topography of the projected airport. I cannot forecast in detail what is involved in terms of vehicle movements for the construction of paved runways at least 12,000 feet and possibly as much as 15,500 feet long. Specifications for runways depend on many factors—at Melbourne, Australia, the runways are flexible pavements 58in. to 64in. in thickness, including a two-inch thick coating of bitumen. The runways at London Airport 3 will obviously have to be stressed to take aircraft weights perhaps as high as lm. lb—the Boeing 747 is not the largest creature of its kind by any means.
The BAA's outline specification contemplates the likelihood of cutting or filling operations in localized areas of up to 60ft and individual isolated projections of up to 150ft may have to be dealt with by earthmoving equipment. It seerns highly likely that such operations will provide work for quite a lot of site-tippers and I have not mentioned the haulage and tipping requirements in the construction of taxiways, aprons, passenger and cargo terminals, carparks, maintenance areas, perimeter roads, access roads, air traffic control centre, fuelling facilities, administrative offices and buildings to house police, fire and rescue services. Within a few years 300,000 people would live near and "service" the airport.
It is commonplace for youngsters starting in industry today to be told that they may have to be re-trained, perhaps for an entirely different industry, two or three times in the course of a working life. In transport the need for flexibility is just as important. I talked at the airportS conference to Mr. R. C. Peace, deputy managing director of Jacksonville Port Authority, Florida. At the Earls Court container services exhibition I had noted with interest a model of the new port facilities, designed to make Jacksonville a prominent container port, despite the competition of many similar undertakings. Mr. Peace was in London at the World Airports conference to learn about airports because his undertaking had assumed responsibility for a major international airport established some 15 miles inland, replacing four smaller municipal airports. At one time the idea that a port operator could run an airport would have been laughed to scorn, but Mr. Peace was already convinced that the many services necessary could be efficiently married together, with resulting economies. In road transport there is a traditionary dichotomy between the goods and passenger sides of the industry and the balance of opinion seems to be in favour of keeping things this way, though it is arguable that a properly trained general manager could run either goods or passenger undertakings successfully and perhaps, given the right set-up, both together under one roof. (Who could doubt, for example, that Mr. W. Heubeck, the redoubtable managing director of Ulsterbus, would not make a success running a large road haulage concern?) Another delegate I talked to at the Airports conference was a young Cambridge graduate who had joined the Ford Motor Company with a view to specializing in labour relations. Why then was he studying airports? It appeared that the need for a detailed study of air freight potentialities had been perceived at Ford and the erstwhile labour relations man was shortly undertaking a year's research for a Master's degree, at Salford University, on the very different subject of air freight. The examples quoted could, no doubt, be multiplied. As the management training programmes of the various industrial training boards begin to bite it would be surprising—and disappointing—if flexibility is not inculcated from. the outset. For if management is unprepared for change, always harking back to what was done five or 10 or 40 years ago, we must not expect labour to welcome new methods of work or new principles of organization.
Profitability Just how quickly change must come about in transport is less easily decided. On all sides, profitability disciplines—as mandatory today in public enterprises as in private businesses—is a more difficult question. The accountants are so often at loggerheads with the innovators in fast-moving technological industries, in which I include transport.
Mr. Peter Masefield, one of the brightest transport brains in the country, contrasted the real world—with all its constraints— with the visionary world described so often by people with more imagination than responsibility. To him, the real world was full of crystal balls like pumpkins. But difficulties were merely an inspiring challenge: "It would be jolly dull if we didn't have these things round our necks."
In calling for a systems approach to transport decision-making—oddly enough on the same day that a junior minister resigned on a similar issue—Mr. Masefield put his finger on an internationally difficult problem. Delayed decisions are not only an embarrassment in this country. They are less likely to occur when transport management is well informed and keeps itself well informed.
Oscar Wilde once found difficulty in deciding which was more tragic: getting what you want or not getting what you want! The customers of container services, air lines, airports, coach operators, road transport contractors all want JAM TODAY. Pity the poor transport manager and his pumpkin!