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SURFEIT OE.. WHAT?
Page 22
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Perhaps if the question in your Market Capacity article had been "are there too many goods vehicles!}" it would have identified the problem more accurately than are there too many hauliers?" (CM14-20 Nov). Depending on whom the question was addressed to. a different response would be expected.
From the hauliers' viewpoint the general answer would be yes: from the customers' and government's position the answer would be no.
It is an economic fact that when supply exceeds demand prices and inflation remain low. This may be total anathema to the supplier, but it is beneficial to the customer and the government.
Having spent many decades in the field of road transport cannot recall a time, other than in wartime, when the industry benefited from a surfeit of demand. The current situation is the norm.
Companies and participants in the industry are constantly changing. As in life, they are born, they grow up and eventually they fade away. In such circumstances they have insufficient experience against which they can compare their current situation to evaluate whether it is exceptional or normal.
As the years roll by, no doubt CMwill be repeating the question.
JD Barber, Worksop.
Notts.