METROPOLITAN RATES FOR DIS1
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,NCE WORK: How They Can Be Used Showing that the Metropolitan Rates Schedule, Originally Designed for Local Haulage, Can Quite Appropriately be Used for All Classes of Work CAN the Metropolitan Rates Schedule be applied to work other than local haulage? is a question that has been raised. More especially, is it of any use in reference to long-distance haulage? Indeed, I understand that there has been more than a little argument about this question. As usual, I have been asked to arbitrate.
So far as I am concerned, this is a problem which is easily solved. My answer is in the affirmative. I have no doubt whatever that the schedule can readily be adapted to these uses, and, indeed, to problems concerned with rates for all kinds of haulage.
Why, the schedule, in this form, is no more and nii less than a time and mileage table of charges, which has for years been part and parcel of The Commercial Motor Tables of Operating Costs. For long I have recommended the use of these time and mileage figures for the solution of all
kinds of problems of rates and charges. I have stated repeatedly that there is no problem of assessment of costs of haulage or rates which cannot be solved by their use.
Furthermore it is a fact that Mr. T. A. McDowall, who, as I pointed out in last week's article, is mainly responsible for the Metropolitan Rates Schedule, is a warm advocate of the application of the principles of time and mileage to the assessment of fair and proper rates for all classes of traffic. This schedule of his is based on that principle and he believes, just as firmly as I do, in the soundness of the principle involved and in its almost universal appli
cation. ,
In Table I the Metropolitan Rates Schedule is set out. In Table II are the up-to-date figures of time and mileage charges, according to the method favoured in The Commercial Motor Tables of Operating Costs. I use the expression "
up-to-date" to emphasize that these figures are not those Am, which appear in the current issue of the Tables, but have been modified so that war-time increases in cost are provided for.
It is of interest before going into the main question—the applicability of these Tables—to compare the figures in the two schedules and see how far they agree or disagree.
Leave the column of minimum rates, as being necessarily arbitrary figures, and come to the third column of the Metropolitan Rates Schedule. Consider the case of a 4-tonner as being a fairly popular type of vehicle. The Metropolitan rate is 8s. fid. per hour for a maximum of six miles.
In the figures in this column it should be noted that time and mileage are added. This has the merit of simplicity, in the sense that it gives, at once, a minimum figure per hour, because no vehicle can be expected to go out upon the road without covering something like 4 or 5 m.p.h. The Commercial Motor figures in Table II are 3s. 6d. per hour and 9/d, per mile for anything under 5 m.p.h. It is the same thing as prOviding for a maximum, of six miles. Five times 9/d. is 3s. 11/d. and that added to the 35. 6cl. gives 7s. 5/d. per hour.
If I take the full six miles I get 8s. 2/d, per hour, so that there is not much difference between the two sets of figures. ' If I take the figures for a day, then I have 8/ hours at 3s. 60„ which is £1 9s. 90. and, say, 44 miles at 9/0., which gives me £3 4s. 7d., as against the £3 in the Metropolitan Schedule. Therefore, curiously enough, whilst my figure for the rate per hour is less than the Metropolitan figure, that for the day is more.
Some Figures Relating to the Operation of a 10-tonner Turning now to the 10-tonner, The Commercial Motor figures are 5s. 6d. per hour and ls. 4d. per mile and that for five miles in the hour gives 12s. 2d., as against 14s. 60. in the Metropolitan Schedule. For the full day I should want 8/ times 5s. 0d. and 44 times Is. 40., giving a total of £5 5s. 5d., as against the Metropolitan figure of £5 10s.
The difference is negligible and could easily be affected by the difference of six miles per day between my figure of 44 miles and the 50 miles which is provided for in the Metropolitan scale,
There is the same difference in principle in the Metropolitan scale as in The Commercial Motor'Tables, as between a charge per mile for a •fairly high daily miles ge And that for a low one. This is made apparent in the last Column of the Metropolitan Schedule, where the charge per mile, when more than 100 miles is covered in the day, is reduced in favour of the customer.
It will be interesting now to appty the figures from the Metropolitan Schedule to a problem which was sent me a few clays ago. I was asked to suggest a rate for some one-way traffic from the Metropolis to a place approximately 125 miles away. It transpired that a load was 10 tons and that a complete round journey occupied two days, involving a total working time of 18 hours. The distance covered per journey was 252 miles.
Now, according to the Metropolitan Schedule (and my reading of it, which may not be quite right), we should
take first two days of 8 hours each at 25 10s. per day, giving us £11. Add an extra hour at 9s. and for 152 extra miles (252 miles, less the 100 miles which is allowed in the two days) at is. Id. per mile. The total is 219 13s. 8d., to which must be added 10s. for board and lodging, because the man is away overnight. The grand total is £20 3s. 8d., which for a 10-ton load is £2 Os. 4d. per ton.
According to the figures in -Table II, the method of calculation would be to take 18 hours at 5s. 6d., which is £4 19s., and 252 miles at Is. Id. per mile, which is £13 13s. The total, so far, is 218 12s., to which should be added 10s. for board and lodging, making £19 2s. in all, which is equivalent to £1 18s. 3d. per ton, to the nearest penny.
Charges to be Met When Extra Man is Employed
It should be noted that no provision is made in either of these Tables, or in the foregoing calculation, for an extra man to be employed on the vehicle concerned. in the case of such employment the charge to be met must be increased by the wages paid to that man, plus not less than 40 per cent. to cover overheads and profit. If the vehicle be away overnight a further addition for board and lodging for the second man is requisite.
Now take the case of some traffic in bricks over a 60-mile lead, with no opportunity for a return load. The bricks weigh 2 tons 13 cwt. per 1,000 and the traffic is being carried in 2,000 lots on the usual type of lightweight 5-tonner. (I do not condone this overloading of lightweight chassis, but I am dealing with the traffic as I know it to be carried.) A day is occupied in the round trip, so that, according to the Metropolitan Rates Schedule, the charge should be £3 Sc. for the day, plus an_addition of 70 miles at 71d. per mile. The total is 25 Sc. 9d., which is 22 14s. 41d. per 1,000.
According to The Commercial Motor figures in Table 11, we should take 81 times 3s. 8d., which is Al us. 2d., plus 120 miles at 7d., which is £3 lOs., so that the total is 25 ls. 2d.: or 22 10s. 7d. per' 1,000.
Here is another problem with which I have had to deal. An operator is carrying shingle, conveying seven loads of 3 tons each per day of 8i hours, in which time the vehicle covers 86 miles. According to the Metropolitan Schedule, he should charge £2 15s. for the day, plus 36 miles excess at 5/d. per mile, which is 16s. 6d. The Vital is £3 us. 6d., so that for the 21 tons of traffic he should obtain not less than 3s. 6d. per ton.
Now, according to The Commercial Motor figures, we must charge for 81 hours at 3s. 4d., which is 21 8s. 4d., plus 86 miles at 6d., which is £2 3s. The total of £3 115, 4d, is almost exactly the same as the figure deduced from the Metropolitan scale, Here is one more example. What should "be the daily charge for a 10-tonner covering an average of 140 miles per day? According to the Metropolitan Schedule, it should be £5 10s., plus 90 miles at Is. ld., which is 24 17s. 6d.; i.e., £10 7s. 6d. per day. The Commercial Motor figure would be 81 times 5s. 6d., which is £2 6s. 9d, for the time, plus 140 miles at Is. Id., which is 27 Ils. 8d. The total is £9 18s. 5d. per day.
One point must not be omitted in discussing either or both of these Tables. They provide for the commonest type of vehicle, either a plain platform lorry or a sided lorry. Special types, such as tipping lorries, tilt vans, or any kind of vehicle more expensively equipped, involve some addition to the charge.
Just what that addition should be dependa upon the circumstances and the extra cost, but it should be realized that, in calculating that extra cost, there are no fewer than three items of operating costs to be taken into consideration, namely, interest on capital outlay, depreciation, and maintenance. A rough and ready method of assessing the total effect of these, including provision for profit, is to arrange that half be reimbursed annually.
What that would mean may be considered in the case, say, of a 10-tonner fitted with an expensive van body, which increased the cost by as much as 2250. An additional 2125 per annum must be earned each year, in order to allow for that extra expense. That is £2 10s. per week, roughly is. per hour. It would mean that the daily charge for such a vehicle' should be not the £5 10s, nained in the.Metropolitan Schedule, but £5 185. 6d.. Similarly, in the case, say, of a 2-tonner, fitted with a body which cost £50 more than the inexpensive type which is used as a basis, it would be necessary for that vehicle to earn an extra 10s. per week, approximately 2s. per day, which raises the rate from 22 7s. to 22 9s'. S.T.R.