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Chunnel 'great challenge
Page 55
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COMMENTING on Wednesday on the influence of trans-Continental requirements and European Economic Community regulations, Mr. Rex Watson Lee, managing director, commercial vehicle division of Rootes Motors Ltd., emphasized that the prospect of a Channel tunnel and the rapidly increasing use of containers and roll-on/roll-off ferry services represented an enormous challenge to the commercial motor industry particularly with regard to vehicle design and operational trends.
Mr. Watson Lee was speaking as guest of honour at the twentieth annual dinner-dance of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers, to which he was officially welcomed by Mr. William Swallow, newly elected president of the Institute.
In the more immediate future, said Mr. Watson Lee, new patterns of delivery service would develop in many trades and because of the growing traffic congestion in the streets of larger cities night deliveries in containers would have to be adopted by the distributive trades.
In total, the new requirements would make heavy demands on the management of roadtransport fleets and would necessitate a higher degree of efficiency in maintenance, staff training, accounting and so on. In this time of change, there was also an urgent need for much closer collaboration between operators and vehicle manufacturers with regard to design and maintenance.
Referring to the technical education scheme of the Institute, Mr. Watson Lee described the need for properly trained staff with a true professional status as "almost desperate". He had been impressed, he said, by the constant and significant growth of the Institute's membership to more than 3,250. The increase in membership in the past year had been considerably in excess of the increase in any previous year.