ROAD FREIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 75, 26 September 1932, Page 8

ROAD FREIGHTS

ADJUSTMENT WITH RAIL

BASIS OF COMPETITION

BRITISH PROPOSALS

That motor road traffic should pay the annual roading bill of £60,000,000 and that ■; a licensing system for motor goods - transport should he instituted, are two of the more important recommendations made by the conference appointed by the British Minister of Transport to consider what-would be a fair,basis 'of competition-between road and rail transport of goods. Under the licensingl system reasonable wages and good conditions for employees and the proper maintenance of vehicles would v be enforced. .Another recommendation was that the Minister o/ Transport should be empowered to prevent the- transference of certain classes of goods from the railways to the roads.

The conference consisted of the general managers of the four railway groups and four representatives of the road interests' concerned, with Sir Arthur Salter as independent chairman. All the recommendations were made unanimously.

In a leading article summarising and commenting on the report, "The Times" stated that the conference had done its work "with admirable thoroughness and masterly • precision." ■ .'-

"It is perhaps natural enough that the road users should appear in the

eyes_of their partisans to have made

formidable concessions ("The Times" tontinued), but the very nature of the problem with which the conference had to deal required.the clear recognition of a fundamental inequality which

exists at present between the' railways

and the road users. For the 'permanent way Vof the road hauler has been constructed and maintained out of public funds, whereas the railways have been, built out of private capital. . THE BOAD-TTSE BILL. ".The first task of the conference was therefore to examine tho incidence of highway costs and to determine their just distribution, between the ■ different classes of road users, in order to arrive at an equitable basis of taxation which ■would ensure that neither the railways nor the roads should "enjoy any unfair advantage in performing their respective services for the public. In examining this fundamental question tHe conference was guided by the following considerations: The road system.of the country is used generally by the ■whole community and therefore the total cost of its construction and.main- ' tenancy cannot in fairness bo placed upon. the. shoulders of the particular "group of road users who employ mech'ahically propelled vehicles. It has

sometimes been contended that a fair basis of taxation should be arrived at by charging motor vehicles with the difference between the cost of the roads in the pre-motor, era and the present cost of our highway system. This method of allocation, .however, is dismissed by the conference as unduly favourable to the motor user. For not only'has much of the pre-war, use of the roads disappeared, but, in addition, the present motor:user enjoys a large legacy from the past in respect of the heavy capital expenditure which has been devoted to the transformation of our.road system in order.to adapt it to the needs of mechanical transport. The 'factors of /community use' and 'legacy of .the past 1 must therefore.be balanced: against each other,- and,- though neitherof them is capable of exact calculation, •the conference' camo to the unanimous' conclusion that they cancel one another and that the users of mechanically propelled1 vehicles ought therefore to pay, in the form of duties and petrol tax, a sum equivalent to the current expenditure on roads, which amounts to a- net figure of

£60,000,000. TON MILEAGE AND PETROL BASIS.

"In allocating this sum between the different, classes .of mechanical vehicles, the .conference, has agreed upon a

rather complicated criterion which justly apportions' the contributions of , each, class in accordance with the-wear and-tear for which it is responsible. The-.two "chief factors upon which this criterion is based are ton-mileage and petrol consumption,' corrected for need and''loaded' against the heaviest types . of vehicle. Upon this basis £23,500,000 out of the '£60,000,000 ' is allocated to commercial vehicles—about £2,500,000 more than they pay at present—and £36,500,000 to private cars and other types of passenger conveyances. The- report does not concern itself further with the taxation of passenger vehicles as this question was outside its.terms of reference, but it proceeds on the agreed basis to,distribute the £23,500,000 between the different classes of commercial; vehicles.; No increase is recommended in the /licence duties of the - smaller types of- lorry, but it is ({.proposed to make the heaviest vehicles pay a very much larger contribution to the Exchequer than they do" at prey sent. - Thus," for; example, a ten-ton lorry fitted with pneumatic tires which now^pays only £48 in licence duties would in future pay £226. ~ The reason for this heavy increase lies in an anomaly, in our present system of licence duties, which, when it was introduced, did not, apparently, contemplate any vehicles weighing more than five tons, and therefore .fixed the maximum duty payable at that point. v LICENSING CONDITIONS.

. -"-Having accomplished the fiscal portion of its task the committee makes some important recommendations designed to secure a greater measure of equality between the two kinds of transport in the general conditions' of service. Tor this ■ purpose road transport is divided into two categories— public carriers.or haulers, and 'ancilr lary users,' who are permitted not to ply for hire, but only to carry their own goods. All vehicles in both categories are to be licensed, and licences are to be issued subject to certain conditions with respect to the. fitiress of vehicles, the. payment of reasonable wages, and the; observance of proper conditions of service. No restriction is to be placed upon thej licences»to be granted to ancttlary.tisers, but it is proposed that the licensing authorities shall be empowered in the future to withhold licences to public carriers where it is deemed that existing transport facilities are excessive—a principle, which has "already been adopted with regard to passenger transport. A Central Advisory Committee is to be constituted to act as a. Court of Appeal and to assist the Minister of Transport in directing the licensing authority. The conference makes no attempt to control rates in the road transport industry, but it recommends that they should be published, and also that tho Minister of Transport should have power to prohibit by regulation certain classes of heavy traffic from being transferred in.' future from the railways to the toads. "FOUNDATIONS TOR CO-ORDIN-ATION."

"The proposals for the regulation of road traffic are evidently, designed to

effect the smallest Government interference with legitimate competition between road and rail, and their object is clearly to exclude only such forms of competition as can definitely be called unfair. Whether they will be sufiicient by themselves to secure the most economic use of both types of transport only tho. future can reveal. Meanwhile the i conference, even if it has been compelled to omit many important questions whjch will still have to bo decided, has laid woll and truly the foundations for a proper co-ordination of road and railway services. If its recommendations are put into practice, as they should be without delay, a disastrous controversy will bo closed. Neither the railways nor the road users will be able in the future to raise .the cry of unfair competition, and a new era of collaboration between former rivals will at last have become possible. Neither the bolstering up of obsolete methods of, transportation, nor the gradual attrition, through fiscal and other disabilities, of an indispensable portion of our transport system is in the publio interest. What is needed is the most economical employment of both forms of conveyance. The representatives of both branches of transport have unanimously upon the fundamental principles by > which this object is to bo attained. It now remains for,them to work out in collaboration the appropriate system of coordination, the need for which their report has so .justly emphasised."