Don't Shoot the Referee
Page 71
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VALIANTLY, year after year, the Central Transport Consultative Committee, and the area users' committees, struggle on with the task of prodding the British Transport Commission on behalf of a largely unappreciative public. The Central Committee choose the occasion of their ninth annual report to explain the triangular relationship, in the hope that somebody will be listening.
The public may well remain unconvinced. They persist in regarding the committees as windbreaks, to protect the Commission from the too cold blasts of criticism. According to the report, this is the wrong attitude. Deputations or individuals who appear before a committee are mistaken, the report says, if they think they are putting their case to arbitration. They are really taking part in a consultation, with their own appointed specialists—even if, in fact, it is the Minister of Transport who makes the appointments. .
The report suggests that, on the other hand,. the Commission are perhaps too clear-sighted about the functions of the committees. They feel that the committees "sufficiently represent and guard the public interest," and that there is no need to give information to other people, particularly to objectors against proposals to withdraw unremunerative services. The objectors often want to have figures of savings, costs or losses. These "can only be explained with difficulty to those unfamiliar with them, and can be distorted by facile but unsound reasoning."
To their credit, the Central Committee realize that the Commission's determination to work to statutory rule does not help relations with the public. Discussions are taking place to see whether a "mutually acceptable solution" can be reached. For individual grievances, the report says that the correct procedure is, first an approach to the Commission, and then a reference to the local users' committee. A "small explanatory handbook" is being prepared, to make the public more aware of what the committees are and do, and to prevent allegations that "show that our activities are misunderstood."
Getting Satisfaction The complaint that they have been misunderstood has been made by the Central Committee before, and will, no doubt, be made again. Whether guided by instinct or by reason, the public do not like nationalized industries, not least because of the difficulty of getting satisfaction from them when something goes wrong. However wellintentioned a consultative committee, especially for an industry such as transport, about which there is so much controversy, the public will be suspicious. Even when they are being most candid, the report of the Committee must fail to inspire the confidence they seek. They admit that, in spite of objections, they have hitherto resisted the closure of only a few lines or services. Their explanation is that "the evidence in favour of economizing by closing lines up to now has been in nearly every case so overwhelming that no other course was possible." Evidently, it was not considered overwhelming by the objectors, who will, no doubt, continue to believe that the Committee's comment is begging the question.
The Committee have one or two helpful suggestions. They welcome any reluctance shown by the Commission to close down a service while there is any hope of making it pay, and hope -that, whatever other projects may have to be postponed, the provision of lightweight Diesel cars and trains in substitution for local steam train services will be pressed on as quickly as possible. In opposition to, a
deputation from some East London local authorities on the subject of over-crowding on the Central Line of London Transport, the committee do not consider it futile to propose the staggering of hours.
A section of the report is devoted to rural bus services, and the usual opportunity is taken to blame private cars, motor-assisted cycles and scooters, and television, for the general .decline in the bus industry. A possibility discussed with the West Midland Licensing Authority is the granting of a licence in " very rural " areas, to allow vehicles carrying parties under contract arrangements, but with spare seats, to pick up passengers at individual fares. The vehicles should be travelling over roads "where they did not compete with existing carriage services'
Elsewhere in the report, the Corrimittee permit themselves to express a few opinions on subjects of current interest. They have examined cases where full railway wagons have been lost in transit, or have been delayed to such an extent as to upset the customer's trading or manufacturing programme. The Commission gave the infbtritatiOn. that, of approximately 19,000,000 wagons or merchandise and mineral traffic forwarded by British -Railways in .1956, approximately 15,400 went temporarily astrahland in about 1,350 cases "the railway failed altogetherto establish the identity of the consignment." On the: strength of these figures, the Committee do not consider that the problem of lost wagons is very serious, although they admit it is by no means negligible, for the somewhat -quaint reason that "every wagon lost or unduly delayed may result in a customer being lost to rail."
Normal DilatOriness The normal dilatoriness of rail transit alarms the Committee more than the occasional total loss, and they have one or two unassailable observations on the increase in the number of C licences. This is a reflection in part, says the Committee's report, on the speed and reliability of, as well as the charges made for, rail transport. Manufacturers and traders, having a sense of urgency themselves, are reluctant to work with an undertaking mtriere this sense is "only relative, as it sometimes appears to be on the railways." The Committee make it clear they are referring to the staff rather than to the management.
On "several occasions during the year," the Committee have expressed concern at the increasing amOunt of coal being carried by road, 33m. tons in 1957. They hope to see the railways recapturing what they describe as "pre-eminently railway traffic," because of its bulk and weight, and the amctunt of congestion caused when it is carried-by road.
Enough illustrations have been given to show the range of subjects dealt with by the Central Committee. The members are men of -experience and standing, but they may well find difficulty at times in coping with the wide field covered by their terms of reference.
That one wagon-load out of every 10,000 apparently vanishes into thin air is statistically. negligible—but only statistically. There is no reason'Why a single wagon should
be lost in this thoroughgoing fashion. So at least the unfortunate customers will reason, and their determination never to use the railways again is to them the natural reaction, however much it may worry the Central Committee. Nor does the trader usually consider whether his goods are " pre-eminently " railway or road traffic. They
are his own traffic, and he chooses his transport means. . . .