Transport Bottlenecks Must Be Cleared
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To "Deliver, the Goodsis the Aim of Transport and No Vehicle Can Perform This More Rapidly and Economically Than the Road Motor
By Boyd Bowman
THE Minister of Transport announced a few days ago that new committees are to be set up at more than 40 of the ports of this country to provide machinery to handle goods more efficiently, not only in case existing transport services be• dislocated by
enemy action, but now and at any time. .
It is a fair assumption that the Ministry of Transport takes action only if there be a more than pressing need for it. After all, the Minister can hardly take exception if the man in the street judges his Ministry by the records of his numerous predecessors. Public opinion , is frequently in advance of Ministerial orders. Attention has recently been called in many quarters to the slowing-down of the movement of munitions and goods. At a time when a general speeding-up is more than ever necessary, the reverse has, in fact, taken place.
The forecasting of a period of better relations between the Ministry and the hauliers is good news. It is to be hoped that there will be better relations between the Ministry and all sections of the road-transport industry, also between the Ministry and the general public. Good relations can be lasting, however, only if all causes for suspicion and mistrust be removed. That will be no easy task. The important thing today is not the relations between the Ministry and the operators or users of any one of the four main 'systems of transport, but the over-riding issue of providing the country with the most efficient and most economical transport possible.
Ever since the establishment of the Ministry of Transport important personages connected with it have felt obliged on frequent occasions to deny that it has any bias towards the railways. "And Brutus is an honourable man." The outbreak of war saw the adoption of a definite policy of diverting traffic from the roads to the railways. The necessity of cutting down the supply of motor fuel seemed a good reason for accepting that policy—a year ago. But experience of the working out of that policy has bred doubts as to its wisdom. The switch-over has been too great. The loss of efficiency and the increase in cost have become more marked.
• Ample Fuel Apparently Available •
Last September the future was dark. Most people probably anticipated a greater interruption of our seaborne traffic than has occurred. Few could have imagined that, not only would our own merchant tonnage stand higher now than it did then, but that the huge merchant fleets of two small but great maritime 'countries would be added to ours. We are able, indeed, to. provide ourselves with, the fuel needed not only to satisfy the immense requirements of the Air Force and the other fighting Services, but to make possible the fuller utilization of the powers of road transport.
It is the corollary of the policy of diversion of traffic that the capacity and services of road transpOrt should be under-used. Such a policy can be justified on only two grounds, one, that it is impossible to operate road transport because the fuel cannot be obtained, or else that diversion causes no loss of efficiency due to avoidable delay Or unduly enhanced cost. When the Minister of Supply stated that, in his opinion, there had been no
substantial, delays or increase in cost (Parliamentary Reports, August 1), he at any rate admitted that there were both delay and higher cost.
A new factor has come into the question of the allocation of traffic to and from the ports and the industrial areas: The Government is the importer of increasing volumes of munitions and goods, as well as the mover of war material and supplies to other countries. Traffic on Government account is growing. Given the policy of putting everything poSsible on the railways and the further fact of Government interest in the profits earned by the railways, it is not surprising that road transport is given little chance to carry more than a small amount of these goods and supplies.
The warehouses in certain ports are crammed. Accommodation is scarcely to be had for love or money. Such bottlenecks are unhealthy. They db not aid the rapid turn-around of ships, which is so desirable.
• Road Transports Declining Mileage •
The under-use of road transport is to be measured by two important figures. There were some 55,000 fewer commercial vehicles licensed at the end of February last (Chancellor of the Exchequer, Parliamentary Reports, March 21, 1940) than in June, 1938, the last previous date for which figures are available. This is a reduction of over 11 per cent. Then there is the reduction of the running of those vehicles left in operation to about two-thirds of their pre-war mileage by the incidence of fuel rationing. It might be thought that to reduce the number of vehicles capable of assisting the transport of the country was of doubtful wisdom. To fail to use those still kept in service to the fullest of their powers is clearly wasteful.
A haulage contractor in one of the great ports had three sub-contractors working for him. Two of these have been forced off the road by the severity of fuel , rationing, and the third is now limited to one journey a week to a town 150 miles distant. Another man finds himself restricted to four days' running out of seven. A common thing is for road-transport men who have specialized in the carriage of certain commodities, e.g., foodstuffs or newsprint, now that the quantities of those are limited, not to be allowed to switch over to the carriage of any of the goods of which there is a bigger volume to be shifted. It is costing as much to take feeding stuffs by road from the railhead to the farms, in certain cases, as it did to bring them direct from the port in one vehicle with a single operation.
Everything should be done to increase efficiency, to help the Minister of Supply in the great production drive he has launched, to quicken at every stage the tempo of national effort. Road transport can provide the speediest and, because of its economy of man-power in handling, the cheapest form of inland transport for many commodities. The British Road Federation has already drawn attention to the under-utilization of road transport at ports where it has a special function in assisting in the quick turn-around of our ships and the avoidance of congestion at such vital points.
The whole country is being urged to beat the clock. ' The service of road transport should be used to the maximum to deliver the goods.