When in Rome
Page 74
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
RESTRICTION has been the common lot of road transport operators, whether they carry passengers or goods. Their experience should make them reasonably certain that, whenever an opportunity to escape seems to arise, their guardians will do their:best to plug it up again. Further proof of this is provided by what is happening to plans for carrying goods on road vehicles back and forth
between Britain and Europe. .
Like a breath of fresh air has come the possibility, fanned by the proposal for a European Free Trade Area, of extending the activities of British hauliers to every part of the Continent, even beyond the Iron Curtain. There are administrative and technical difficulties. in any event. Britain has a :self-contained licensing system that fits the varying systems of the Continent no. better. than the European couplings fit .the British trailer. But many of the difficulties have been overcome,. and others are on the
way to a solution.. . .
• What may have made some operators keener than usual to test the new market that the roll-on7ro1lbff ferry has opened up was the promise of a partial. relief, from the :somewhat stifling licensing system. Two recent decisions by the West Midland Licensing Authority give the impres.sion that. the promise will not. be fulfilled, and that the writ of the Licensing Authorities runs to the .epds of the earth if necessary. .
If the experience is° repeated in other traffic areas, the Mterested operators may have to take a test case to the Transport Tribunal. The reasoning by the Licensing Authority was that he must have regard to the facilities that are being offered, even if they are being offered abroad where a British licence is noCrequired. If this is really in accordance with the relevant Acts, it is opposed to the commonsense viewthat when in Rome one does as the Romans do. The European countries should be capable of making arrangements :for the collection and delivery of goods within their own boundaries, and of imposing whatever restrictions they may think necessary.
. Reciprocal Basis Although sonic European countries allow each other's vehicles in on a reciprocal basis, the procedure is not uniform. It will tend to become so as time goes on, and British operators may find that they are given a quota, or that some other more suitable regulations are devised. These will apply to foreign operators sending their vehicles into this country, and the Licensing Authorities may have some say in the matter. In the meantime, it seems a mistake to attempt to control acompletely new set of circumstances by means of Licensing machinery introduced for quite a different purpose.
All in all, the international carriers have done well to set up a committee as a first step towards closer co-operation. Although they are breaking fresh ground in a way that recalls the pioneer days of road haulage in the 1920s, --they are no longer allowed to make up the rules as they go along.
Reference to the pioneer spirit is not out of place. The comparatively small number of operators who have gone
• seriously into the pros and eons of sending their vehicles abroad are blazing a trail that is likely to become a broad 'highway as more and more people find their way along it, and as the volume of trade with European countries increases, as is most likely to be the case.
06
There is plenty of scope for new ideas.. The more enterprising operators will do their best to keep one step ahead of their competitors, sons to reap the full benefit of the time and money they have spent on research into the many problems involved. The operators who come Moe the field. late will struggle to keep .up, and there is an added piquancy in the rivalry between independent hauliers and 'British Road Services.
In his recent somewhat one-sided paper to. the Instinre of Tra:nsport at Edinburgh, Mr. G.. W. Quick Smith, a member of the beard of management of B.R,S., did not fail to draw attention to the use they were making • of ferry services, and suggested that this was made possible by large-scale organization and research.To the extent that this is true, hauliers serving on the new committee will have to pool their resources inorder to compete with B.R.S.
• Duplication of Effort
The setting up of a dommittee should not reduce the ..scope for the individualist. It will save duplication of effort on problems where collaboration will bring better results, and it will provide the focus for action on a number ofpoints where agreement is essential. . The licensing problem I have already mentioned. It is significant that the objectors in the two West Midland cases were the two branches of the British Transport Commission, so that, one. urgent task is to establish the principle that the existence of facilities for overseas transport by the nationalized organization should not automatically tell against anybody else who , wants to provide a Si milar service.
It will be just as important in due course to decide exactly -how easy or difficult it ought to be for British hauliers to operate on the Continent. The very description of the Free Trade Area carries overtones of the old idea of laissez faire. There will not be wanting people to question the propriety of making trade free and leaving the carder in chains. The ideal might well be complete freedom of transport at least from o.ne country to another. Before agreeing too readily to this, however, operators in Britain will have to consider the possible effects of an international free-forall upon the stay-at-home hauliers still bound by a restrictive system of licensing.
The-case for complete freedom is much stronger when the traffic is carried in specialized vehicles, such as tankers and refrigerated vans. The Economic Commission for Europe have, in fact, already sponsored an organization to encourage refrigerated transport by road on the Continent, and the most obvious kind of encouragement would be to drop the formality of licensing. Britain is not so far represented on the organization, although British hauliers have taken refrigerated traffic oversells, .in one case a distance -of 1,250 miles from Aberdeen to Milan. If the need arises, the new Committee would be the .body to make an appointment to the organization; In this way, all operators gain, and not merely an individual,
There should be plenty of traffic for all hauliers who take the trouble to provide an efficient service to and from the Continent. On the Tilbury-Antwerp ferry there is an overwhelming predominance of Military and C-licensed vehicles, and many of the latter, where they cannot obtain return loads, must be carrying traffic that could. go much more oheaply.by professional haulier.' .