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You cant miss it!
Page 133
Page 134
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Traffic managers should make the latest Ordnance Survey map a must in every cab rather than relying on those famous last words
by John Darker, AMBIM IT'S A COMMMON belief in road transport circles that lorry drivers as a body of men dislike maps. It is comparatively rare to see a lorry driver studying a map at a lay-by, or elsewhere. Yet lorry drivers often have to stop to ask the way to their final destination.
Some lorry drivers, of course, make use of paper maps, such as are sold cheaply at wayside garages. Such maps are easily torn, but useful sections of them may survive in cabs for a long time. Maps which when opened out need a table top for easy reading are not always suitable for drivers in cars or lorries. Hence the popularity of book-maps of comfortable size for handling.
In traffic offices, too, there may be a dearth of modern maps. You often see advertising "gift" maps prepared a generation or more ago and completely unsuitable for route-planning today. I once glued together sections of a Shell "Foldex" map to provide a map of mainland Britain some 6ft wide by 8ft high.
This operation is worth while so long as map scales are right to fit a given amount of wall area. Sometimes the printed sections do not wholly coincide when stuck together, so that roads are slightly out of alignment, Proof, no doubt, that the map-makers had no thought that a user might be tempted to make a big map from a number of sections, drawn to the same scale and published in the same format.
Both traffic managers—and their staffs—and lorry drivers, ought to make use of the best possible maps. The cost of unnecessary vehicle mileage is high enough to make even a profligate use of maps an economy. Those with a good track record in map using do not always keep their maps up to date, and new sections of road may not be used because the out-of-date map does not show them.
So far as lorry drivers are concerned, I suspect that the map-user may be regarded as a freak, even effeminate. I am assured that many long-distance drivers prefer to navigate by verbal questioning at cafés and motorway eating houses.
Delivery point
In the town or district where a delivery is to be made the lorry driver will almost inevitably stop to inquire the location of the delivery point. Yet any road haulier wishing to obtain a town or district map showing the precise road layout would have no difficulty in doing so. Local directories, with maps, are produced for wide circulation by estate agents, and other traders. A recent suggestion calls for a local map to be printed on the reverse of a customer's order form, so that the delivery driver knows in a second how to find the premises.
I have known traffic managers who check the vehicle mileages of a number of vehicles doing identical journeys between A and B. It is common form to find a mileage variation, even though the main part of the journey may be along specified roads.
These thoughts are prompted by the publication by the Ordnance Survey of a new Route Planning Map of Great Britain for 1976. This is a best seller, obtainable from any HMSO shop, with the added merit of annual publication. There is no excuse for using an out of date map when for 95p you can be upto-date (map printed July 1975). This Ordnance Survey map has the North and South sheets printed back to back, a popular format first tried with the 1975 edition. Those who ,prefer it may buy for 65p the North and South sheets printed separately. The scale is 10 miles to the inch, and this is probably the best compromise for route-planning work, though it omits some small villages.
The map gives details of new motorways and extensions due to open in the next 12 months; motorway service areas; diagrams of motorway junctions with limited access; mileage chart for distances between major towns and cities; detailed insets of large cities; information on Motorail services; departure points of sea and air car ferry services to the Continent. For good measure there is an explanatory legend in English, French and German, so the map could make a suitable gift to any visiting foreign driver.
A valuable feature of the route planning map is that high land is shown overprinted in grey. This provides the user with some evidence as to the best route to take —direct, over the hills, or using the valley main roads. The map is detailed enough for the cautious transport manager to work out his journey mileage pretty accurately.
No substitute
With the nation facing an era of high-cost fuel it might be thought that all professional lorry drivers-would insist on being supplied with an adequate set of maps. Some firms provide written details of a preferred route but, as any seasoned traveller knows, there is often no substitute for a good map when actually on the journey.
Why, then, are maps so seldom used by lorry drivers? Is it not because of the tradition that lorry drivers are careless with equipment provided free or, if not careless, likely to ruin a decent map within a matter of days or weeks? I suspect that it is a matter4 of tradition. If all employers in the industry had always made a habit of ensuring that no driver departed without appropriate maps then the present antipathy of lorry drivers to maps could never have arisen. It is a natural reaction of employees, faced with what they regard as a " mean" employer to feel, obstinately, that maps are for other people, not for "professional" lorry drivers.
If I am right, then the road haulage industry, over the years, has paid very dearly for minimal savings in money. Indeed, the problem today may well be to persuade drivers to use maps, and town maps for all their delivery areas, when provided free— and preferably in a durable wallet or envelope file—by employer s. Why should drivers who have managed very well to navigate across country, using "the tongue in their mouth" bother to change their attitude at the behest of a modern traffic manager ?
The answer surely is that road haulage faces acute financial problems. If the use of good modern maps only saved five miles empty or loaded running per week then their cost would be covered several times over. It is not difficult today to hear about ghastly " bloomers " involving hundreds of miles of wasted mileage because of the lack of a decent map, in traffic office or cab.
The traffic manager who says this has never happened to him must be very inexperienced or gullible. It does happen and it will continue to happen. No serious touring motorist would set out on a long trip without a decent set of maps and I suggest that lorry drivers should be similarly equipped.
Of course, a minority of transport executives may be aware of devices, even more modern than a 1976 map, for road haulage navigation. Radio aids are useful for local work in many areas. Metallic strips buried beneath roads, or slung between telegraph poles, could provide a navigational system giving automatic travel down lorry routes.