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Haulage Rates for Road Materials
Page 94
Page 99
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T. HERE are many special conditions applying to the
carriage of road materials which involve difficulties that should be known to hauliers as they vitally affect the rates which should be charged.
Many of the aspects of the problems arising from this class of work turn on the character and source of the materials to be carried. Broadly speaking, these can be divided into three groups—stone, sand and gravel and tar. Stone is derived from quarries, sand and gravel from waterways and sand pits, and tar from various manufacturers of that commodity.
A most important consideration for the haulier, concerning the first and second of these classes of road material, is the size and scope of the concern from which they are obtained.. The reason for this will appear later. As a preliminary, a brief description of the methods by which the material is obtained and prepared for collection by the haulier is essential.
The stone is quarried and in the biggest and best-equipped concerns it is crushed and graded. The material from the quarries is delivered first to a primary crusher which reduces the rock to "7 in. down." This is then passed into a scalping screen, leaving it as "4 in. to f in." Then it goes to another crusher, leaving it as "3 in. down," and so into an elevator and another scalping screen, which leaves it as "24 in, down."
Screening Stone In its passage through the works the stone is split into two streams, one of which passes into screens to be graded and sold as clean stone, and the other into a drier and heater, thence to a second line of screens for the production of tar macadam. Both clean stone and tar macadam are screened and collected in hoppers in the following sizes: 21 in., 2 in., 14 in., 4 in., 4 in., 4 in. and 4 in.
Two lines of hoppers for the two classes of material are probably arranged one on each side of the main building. Each embodies a downward-projecting chute with shutters #nd it is possible to load a 10-12-ton lorry with any size of material in as many ,minutes as there are tons. The vehicle is merely driven under the chute and the shutter is opened. The lorry stops, in the first place, with the forward end of the body directly under the chute, and drives slowly forward so as to spread the load evenly over the floor space of the vehicle.
The significance of this is that the time needed for loading is comparatively negligible, provided that it is not necessary to queue up for a load. I understand that, if notice be given of the intention to call, with particulars of the load required, there is no waiting so far as clean stone is concerned. That is not invariably the case with tar macadam, as most D32 producers are reluctant to prepare it unless the material will be taken away to time.
Sand and gravel are excavated from pits, and sometimes from the bed of a river, or lake. Even where there is no water at the time of grabbing, it is often present after excavation has gone on for some time.
The material is dredged from the bottom of the lake, conveyed to washers, screens and hoppers, or if not to hoppers, is heaped in mounds.
Here again, there is little or no delay in loading. Only 10 minutes are usually needed either to collect the load from the hopper, or from one of the mounds. Loading is by means of a power-driven elevator. Soft sand is excavated by grab from the sand pit and is sometimes loaded direct from the grab into the vehicle.
When, alter years of excavation, the contour of the site has materially charged, it may be that grabbing is carried out at some distance from where it is convenient to load vehicles. Then the sand is, in many cases, loaded into small railed tip-wagons, and hauled to the loading bay.
In this case the road vehicles are run underneath a gantry and are loaded by the simple process of tipping the wagon so that the sand falls directly into the road vehicle. Alternatively, a truck tips into a slanting metal chute and so into the vehicle. From the point of depreciation and maintenance of the road vehicle, the latter method is to be preferred, for the effect of dropping a couple of tons of sand from a height of 10-15 feet into a lorry is "not so good," Many contractors for the haulage of road material for municipalities and county councils provide for collection from railway trucks, in which case, of course, most of the loading is by hand. The majority of such contracts provides, too, that the haulier shall pay demurrage if he delays in collecting the material from the railway trucks.
The amounts vary, but it is such aa wilt keep the haulier on his toes.
In such circumstances the time for loading depends largely upon the skill and energy of the driver and his mate. Efficient men can load six tons of stone in 40 minutes, and I have known cases where the same weight of sand has been transferred from a railway truck to a roast vehicle in 20 minutes. The unloading of these materials does not normally take long. A tipping wagon or a lorry with a movable floor is generally used and, even where the load has to be dropped in several heaps there is not, as a rule, much loss of time.
Here again, experience is a great help. I have known two men to load and unload 321 tons of tar macadam in a day. The lead, on that occasion was, of course, a short one, but it will be appreciated that the performance is equivalent to loading and unloading 6 tons within the hour.
Tar is customarily conveyed in drums or barrels. The rate paid is usually about the same as that offered for stone and as four tons normally comprise a load for a 6-tonner, the profit, if any, is meagre. Four barrels of tar represent one ton. The conditions usually provide that a couple of barrels must be dropped every 150 yards or, if they be drums, at the rate of 40 to the mile. Mileage is calculated to the mid-point of the stretch of the road over which a single load is delivered.
A feature of such contracts for municipalities which sometimes proves a little troublesome to hauliers, is the rather complicated returns that have to be made.
In connection with municipal haulage, the need for charging profitable rates cannot be too strongly emphasized, particularly in view of the fact that some authorities impose onerous and expensive conditions.
Most rates are cut to the bone. The fault, in the first ease, lies with the haulier. It is often asserted that there is some special advantage in working for a municipality that is not available in any other branch of haulage. .What tins is I have never been able to discover. There might be something in working to a fixed contract thus ensuring that there is alway4 a certain amount of work available.
Such an advantage, however, ceases to exist so soon as it is realized that the rate received so often does not cover the haulier's minimum cost of operation. It should be pointed out, too, that strict compliance with the conditions embodied in the contract would increase the loss at which most of these contracts are at present carried out.
In one such contract, for instance, it is stipulated that, " In cases where the wagon is unavoidably delayed waiting for material, the wages of only the driver and mate will be paid, provided they work with the gang under the instructions of the foreman."
Here is an extraordinary situation. The council hires a vehicle and its crew at a fixed, low rate per day, yet stipulates that if, for some reason entirely outside the control of the haulage contractor, there are times when his vehicle cannot be employed by the council, he shall suffer loss.
Should it be argued that, in such a case, the haulier who is paid by the day is better placed than another whose vehicle is hired by the hour, I would point out that. generally, day rates are much lower than hourly rates. . It will be of interest, now, to cite some examples of the way in which charges should be calculated. 1 will take the case of a 3-ton tipper with driver and no mate. The rate, in a case I have in mind, is 10s. per hour. Such a vehicle will have the following weekly expenditure as standing charges: Licence 12s. Od.; levy, 35. 3d.; wages, including provision for holidays with pay, National insurances and the cost of insurance to meet claims under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, 160s.; garage rent and rates, 8s. 6d.; insurance of the vehicle, 15s.; interest on capital outlay, 12s. 3d.; establishment expenses, minimum, 20s. The total is 11 1 I Is. or 5s. 3d. per hour for a 44-hour week.
The question of mileage must now be considered. Here a difference arises as between contracts with municipalities and contracts with County councils. The latter may involve a slightly increased weekly mileage, as compared with the former. In municipal contracts, at any rate, about 40 to 45 miles per day may be taken as an average so that 5 m.p.h. may be taken as a reasonable basis for assessing costs.
The average running costs of a 3-tonner, according to " 'The Commercial Motor' Tables of Operating Costs," is 9d. per mile. The net cost of operating a 3-ton tipper on municipal service is thus 9s. per hour, and if the rate be 10s. per hour, as in the case I have in mind, the margin of profit is only is. per hour. In my view, this is a ease where the profit ratio is 20 per cent, and thus the charge should be its, per hour, approximately.
A profit of Is. per hour can so easily be dissipated, or at least diminished. If, for example, the haulier's premises happen to be 4i miles from the centre of operations the net cost of the dead mileage is -6s. 9d., or 33s. 9d. per week. This amount must be deducted from his prUtit of £2 4s. which leaves him with 10s. 3d.
I am of the opinion that fair rates for municipal haulage could be based on the figures quoted in the final paragraph of each of the Tables. They are usually referred to as time and mileage charges, and in the case of a 3-tonner the operator should assume an average speed of 5 m.p.h. and calculate his hourly rate on that basis. This will be 6s. per hour plus I lid, per mile. Taking 5 m.p.h. as the average speed travelled during the municipal week, that makes 4s. 81d. per hour to which we add the time charge of 6s, making the minimum charge 10s. 8id. per hour. Add 10 per cent. for the fact that the vehicle is a tipper—is. lid. —and we get a sum of its. 10d. per hour.
The haulage contractor should take steps to have one or two provisions entered into the contract to safeguard his interests. He should, for example, stipulate that if the mileage be more than 40 or 45 miles per day an excess should be chargeable. That extra should be not less than 50 per cent. more than the mileage figure quoted in the final paragraph in the Tables. S.T.R.