What Road Transport Needs
Page 19
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THIS being the first issue of The Commercial Motor Some Factors Affecting the published in the New Future Security and Prosperity Year, it may be of interest of Road Transport Operators • to deal with the main factors • which are influencing, either adversely or bene ficially, the prospects of road transport. The most urgent requirement is that of security.
We have no doubt that, as a whole, it will prosper. ' Trade and industry and the public generally are becoming increasingly aware that road transport is an essential to the well-being of the nation, whether it be in peace, or in the, we hope unlikely, event of hostilities vitally affecting this country. Whatever happens in the way of co-ordination, rate control or limitation, this aspect must be kept right in the foreground.
The passenger-carrying side is doing well, despite certain difficulties in respect of providing • greater facilities, mainly because it supplies a service to the public which could not be attained by any other means for transport. It has•opened up rural areas, permitted the construction of huge housing estates, and has achieved a reliability which has won the admiration of the world. It has the blessing of security of tenure, which, at present, however, is denied to the haulage side. The extension of A licences to five years is an amelioration of the situation, but even that is a short span and is accompanied by increased fees. Automatic Renewal of Licences Essential.
The position would be improved if an A-licensee could be assured that his licence would automatically be renewed at the end of this period, and without being subjected to objections, provided that he had conducted his business in accordance with legal requirements.
The control of the size of a haulage fleet should not be so rigid as at present. There• should not exist the fear that if, owing to a temporary drop in traffic, a vehicle be out of commission for a period, it may be deleted from the licence, for the operator knows full well that once a certain quantity of tonnage has been lost in this way, he will have as much difficulty in obtaining it again as would a new applicant for a similar licence. • Similarly, there should be more freedom for expansion to follow any upward course of trade, for nothing is more injurious to business than to have goods available but delivery delayed through lack of rapid transport facilities, and the tendency, these days, is to reduce idle capital by the conveyance of comparatively small quantities at more frequent intervals.
Road transport is the most heavily taxed of all essential services, and that it has survived, and even flourished, despite the enormous burden of taxation, is indicative of the needs which it meets. It has a strong case for a reduction, but in view of the heavy national expenditure we fear that there is little hope of gaining anything in this direction"; on the other hand, we must do all that is possible to resist anything in the nature of further impositions.
More Hope if Road and Rail Agree.
During the next few weeks interest will naturally be concentrated on the progress made by the Transport Advisory Council and the report upon which it is engaged in producing. A happy augury is to be found in the conversations which are now taking place between the Liaison Committee on Road Transport Rates and the railway representatives. We are hopeful that the result of these meetings will be the prevention of any drastic rate war between road and rail, which would undoubtedly be injurious to both parties. The situation is obviously difficult, because it will be almost futile to establish a real rates-control system for road transport without having a counterbalance in some degree of control for railway charges.
From the point of view of the conditions of labour, road transport will soon be in an unassailable position. Already great improvements have been made in respect of working hours, and with the settlement of the wages question its employees will, as a whole, be in a happier condition than railway workers. 013