PROBLEMS OF THE HAULIER AND CARRIER.
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Beet Haulage Now in Progress. An Example of a Reasonably Priced Contract. Advantages of the Big-load Unit.
JJAIILAGE of this season's beet has now commenced; it would, indeed, have commenced a month ago had the farmers been fully alive to the fact that the factories were prepared to give a bonus or beet received by them during September. In the Eastern counties the outside hauliers, who have been persuaded to come in at cut prices, are not finding everything to their liking. In one respect already the prophecy which I made as to the outcome of this venture is being fulfilled Those farmers who have no return loads of beet pulp to offer are accepting the new haulage rates for beet cartage. . Those who have pulp loads to be carried are not taking these contracts with the freedom which is so essential for the success of the scheme. The trouble is that the farmers have been accustomed to having any pulp brought back to them at half the tonnage price they pay for .beet---. —sometimes even less than half—and whilst they are perfectly willing to accept a cut rate for the cartage of their beet, they cannot see why they Should ray an exorbitant price for pulp transport.
I pointed out in my. article dealing with these cut rates that they were clearly based on the belief that there would be plenty-of return, loads of pulp at very. nearly the same price as the outgoing loads of beet. If those return loads are not forthcoming—and they cannot, by the very nature of things, be anything like so many or bulk so largely as those of beet—then it Is going to be difficult to make ends meet.
Contrast these conditions with those obtaining hi respect of a contract which has just been closed between a large grower of beet and a haulier carrying on business in the beet district and, therefore, well acquainted with the conditions under which beet haulage is effected. This contract provides for the conveyance of 2,500 tons of beet a distance of 13 miles to the factory, returning the same distance and bringing back a load of pulp on every alternate trip. The price agreed is 6s. per ton for-beet and .2s. 641. per ton for the pulp. .
This contractor is using 5-ton lorries and he, therefore; gets 13 12s. 6d. for two double journeys, this amount being made up of 60s. for 10 tons of beet to the factory and 12s. 6d. for 5 tons of pulp brought from the factory to the farm.For that remuneration he covers 52 miles with his 5-ton lorry and the work done represents as much as can be got through in a day. If he does this six times a week his weekly mileage is 312 and his:revenue is 121 1_5s.
Now, according to The.Commercial Motor Tables of Operating Costs, in which are included (we would remind our readers I figures for haulage rates, the revenue for a. 5-ton lorry running 300 miles per week is given as f.21, so that, in this instance, we can confirm the utility of our Tables and the way in which they are found to be closely applicable to practical conditions. It is a fact that, in the beet haulage area, the charges given in those Tables are standardized, This same haulier asked me whether I thought it wotild pay him to put a 10-ton tractor-trailer combination on this particular contract. He had in view some second-hand A.E.C. chassis, specially shortened and 'mated to Carrimore attachments of the capacity named. I replied at once that, on the face of it, there was no doubt that he would find the bigger vehicle a better paying proposition. It was nearly always the case that the bigger the load carried per unit the more. economical the transport. I then wept into the matter of cost roughly and was able to confirm the fact that my first impression was correct and that the advice I had given him was good. The figures may interest other readers, and it is worth while to publish them because they do not appear in a form applicable for this class of work in The Commercial Motor Tables of Operating Costs, to which, in the ordinary way, I should refer any inquirer. They are not in those Tablas because the circumstances are not those usually present when tractor-trailer machines of this capacity are used. As ageneral rule these big vehicles are empIOyed and, in the Tables, provision is made for the wages of two men as well as money for their aceonimoclation •away from home three nights a week, which is the usual condition of working.
The practical way of getting at the facts of the matter is to take the cOstof a 5-tonner and: to set, side by side With these costs, Corresponding 'figures for the. tractor-trailer Combination.
In this way we can Jump the running costs together • and say that the total Will be. approximately 50 Per cent. more in the case Of a large Vehicle than for the 5-tonner, because all the different items will be roughly half as large again. -. That means that, assuming Solid . tyres ireboth cases, which we may do, the running Cost of the 10-tonner will be approximately 10d. per -mile. as against 6.58d. per mile for the 5-tonner.
The standing charges will vary as follows :—The licensing will cost 26s. 4d. per Week as against 21s. 8d. The driver's wageS maybe about 5s. per week more: that is, at any rate, patting it at the outside, and it is more than probable than 2s. (3d. extra will be considered sufficient to both parties to. the wages cataract. To be on the safe side; I will take 5s. There will be no difference for the. item "rent and rates." In some cases there might be a little extra, but in this case I. know there' is not. .Insurance will amount to us. 3d. per week instead of 7.s..8d. There still remains the item of interest of first cost. I do not want to give precise figures away, so will content myself by .taking. something which will give the result at which I am aiming. To that end I will assume the cost of the 5tanner second-1mnd was 1200 "and, of the other, £400. The difference in the interest on these two sums,
c42 reckoned at 51 per cent. per annum, is per year, whieh, in round figures, amounts to 4s. 6(1. per week.
Now, in order to carry out the scheme of transport in a paying manner, extra labour for loading is necessary. I will assume the employment of a loader at i2 per week. Adding all these extra items of standing charges together, we get a total of £2 17s. 9d.
The difference in rumning'costs amounts to 3.42d. per mile, and for a mileage of 315 per week this is equivalent to a total increase in cost of £4 10s.. per week all but about 20. The total additional expenditure, therefore, involved in the use of this 101-ton machine, fiS -against a 5-tonner, is £7 7s. 9d. per week. The additional revenue is easily ascertained, for, since the number of journeys is the same as before and the load carried is twice as much, the weekly revenue must be doubled and, instead of being £21 15s., it is now £43 10s., an increase of revenue of £21 1.5s. as against an increased expenditure of £7 7s. 9d., which means that the additional profit brought about by the use of the larger vehicle amounts to £14 7s.3(1. per week.
There was still one point which I had to raise with this inquirer before clinching the matter,and that was whether there would be any work for the heavy vehicle to do during the summer and that part of the winter When beet haulage was over. The answer was in the negative, or, at any rate, to the effect that there were no certain prospects of work for it, but that, I was told, was of no consequence, inasmuch as it was usual to lay by two cm. three vehicles at least. *
The circumstance itself, however, provides an object lesson for those many readers who are still hazy as to what should come under the term "establishment expenses," for here is something which is definitely of that order,' drice, apparently, it is the custom amongst beet haulage contractors to lay one or two vehicles up during part -of the year. The loss involved by -that course is chargeable as an establishment expense. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that one of these machines is laid by for eight months out of the twelve, then, keeping to the figure I have already named of £200 as. a first cost, the interest on capital outlay is £11 per annum—say a month. Of that interest £8 is an establishment charge, to be spread over the four months during which the vehicle is in use, which is equivalent to about 10s. per week. If, instead of laying by a 5-tonner costing £200, one of these tractor-trailer combinations costing £400 is put on one side, then the establishment expense due to that is doubled, and we . must, therefore, take a further 10s. per week off the extra profit which has been assumed to arise from the use of this tractor-trailer combination on ,beet haulage. .Even at that,the extra profit is still ample enough to
justify the outlay involved. S.T.R.