Improved Towns More Urgent than Motorways
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T00 much emphasis was being placed on the demand for trunk roads, whereas the elimination of congestion in urban areas was much more urgent, said Maj.-Gen. G. N. Russell, . chairman of British Road Services, last week.
The country's fundamental transport policy should be settled before the future development of the roads was decided. Much traffic that was carried by rail ought to go by road, and vice versa, and any redistribution that took place as part of transport policy would affect the roads required.
Maj.-Gen. Russell wondered how the new projected motor road between London and Birmingham would help commercially. At present, goods collected in the afternoon could be delivered next morning and the process could be repeated six days a week, using one vehicle to the full. If the road were to produce .a commercial advantage, one vehicle would have to be able to do the round trip in a day. This would mean loading and unloading twice in a day and, even if the 90-mile section were covered in two hours, he did not see how this would be possible.
More Hours Lost in Cities
"Before we embark upon the construction of this sort of road it would be as well to consider whether or not our money would be better spent in improving the roads and parking areas of our major cities," he declared. "Many more hours are lost inside our cities and at particularly bad bottlenecks than on the general part of our main roads."
Maj.-Gen. Russell was reading a paper entitled, "Road Haulage Operations," to the Bucks, Berks and Oxon section of the Institute of Transport. He stressed particularly the importance of "productivity " in transport and of choosing the right vehicle for the job.
Discussing the relative merits of articulated and rigid vehicles for trunk haulage, he said that the tractor:trailer outfits must be used as such. The semitrailer must be readily detachable and the work must be capable of being organized so that the tractor could be transferred to another job at once.
B.R.S. were working one tractor with three semi-trailers on a parcels service between Edinburgh and Glasgow. There were always two semi-trailers loading and unloading, and one on the move.
Another example was in B.R.S. operations between Birmingham and London, in which one tractor could work with two semi-trailers during one spell of duty. In this instance, an extra tract& had to be available at one end to nrimie the trailers to their destinations.
It might be useful on longer runs, such as from London to Manchester, to have an exchange point half-way, so that tractors could be changed over and returned to their home depots, thus enabling the drivers to sleep at home, yet stay with their own vehicles.
Before buying an articulated outfit it was necessary to ensure that it would provide economies that could not be afforded by a rigid vehicle.
Traffic factors deciding the suitability of articulated units, or rigid vehicles with or without drawbar trailers, included journey schedules and drivers' shifts, sizes of individual consignments, collection and/or delivery requirements, terminal facilities and road conditions.
The operating cost of a rigid 14-15ton eight-wheeler in relation to its carrying potential was less than that of any other rigid vehicle. A payload of 14-15 tons could generally be loaded and unloaded in a reasonable time. Platform size was rather restricted, but 14-ton loads up to a bulk of 80 cu. ft. per ton could be carried.
Maj.-Gen. Russell thought that until quickly detachable semi-trailers were available for big articulated units [Scammell Lorries, Ltd., have just produced one], 14-ton tractor-trailer combinations would not seriously challenge big rigid vehicles for trunk hauls.
10-ton " Artics." Valuable
The 10-ton articulated vehicle was well suited to bulk traffics, because the semi-trailer was quickly detachable and the platform was almost as long as that of a rigid 15-tonner. Capital cost was less than that of the heavier vehicle and operating costs probably lower. On the other hand, unless an articulated 10-tonner could be used on bulk traffic in both directions, it had to run many more miles to carry the same tonnage as an eight-wheeler.
A 14-15-ton eight-wheeler with a 71-8-ton drawbar trailer could carry about 22 tons on a combined platform length of some 40 ft. This combination was particularly suitable for dealing with large blocks of traffic for easy delivery. In addition, a drawbar trailer could be used to deal with loads of several consignments, the conveyance of which on the rigid 'eight-wheeler would cause delay in delivery or trans. shipment. An eight-wheeler with a drawbar trailer was, however, unmanceuvrable and the cost of providjog a second man had to be faced.
As compared with a solo rigid eightwheeler, a 7-8-ton rigid vehicle with a drawbar trailer was cheaper to buy, but the advantage was offset to some extent by higher labour costs. On the other hand, the combination had a total platforM length of about 32 ft., compared with 24 ft. for an eight-wheeler, and it was suitable for high-rated bulky traffic.
The 6-tonner was the largest oilengined vehicle that could be constructed within an unladen weight of 3 tons, and travel legally at 30 m.p.h, Its low payload limited its usefulness for long-distance haulage, but it was eminently suitable to the express movement of perishable traffics. The 6-tonner was also valuable in covering runs of 180-240 miles which could not be completed within the driver's working shift of 11 hours by a vehicle restricted to 20 m.p.h.
Loads for night trunk services should be built up on the vehicle during the afternoon by the shunt driver, avoiding the need for trans-shipment. The lorry would then be driven through the night by the trunk driver and unloaded at the customer's premises next morning by the shunt driver.
Avoidance of Delay Vital
When the field of smaller consign ments was entered, it was necessary to consider whether they should be carried by specialized services in small lots or if they could be trans-shipped without delay at the depot to the main trunk vehicles. The question of delay was vi Good use had been made by B.R.S.
of the railways to carry train loads of containers with parcels and smalls traffic between London and Manchester and other main centres, but better terminal facilities were necessary if the advantages of this type of operation were to be fully exploited.
Every year, some 30m. tons of traffic were handled by railway collection and delivery services—a quantity nearly as great as that dealt with by the whole of B.R.S. It would be well worth while considering how much of this traffic could be handled more cheaply and more efficiently by changing methods. Much of the traffic was being handled by railway vehicles covering identical runs to those traversed by B.R.S. parcels vehicles.
A plan for amalgamating the services was prepared in 1951, but no progress was made because of the legislative changes then contemplated. There was no doubt that amalgamation would effect enormous savings.
It would be interesting also to study the flows of traffic collected by road and trunked by rail, and to consider dispassionately whether it would be better to undertake the whole journey by road.