BRITAIN'S TRANSPORT

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5298, 10 January 1947, Page 7

BRITAIN'S TRANSPORT

decision on great issue to be taken by august Parliament is now closely engaged in debating and ' deciding on what is perhaps the most f ar-reaching of the 14 major ^egiislative measures ajnnounced for this session. The issue is the whole future form and structure of inland transport — rail, road and water — of the United Kingdom. The Government intends to have a decision taken by next August.

The eoming- months, therefore, wiil : see all parties using the utmost skill ; in arguing the Transport Bill's many ■ aspects and det'ails whieh raise poi- • itical issues more keenly than any nieasure so far hrought in by the Labotir Government. The contents. of the Bill were published' at the end of November and compensation for railway stockhold- : ers was made known just before. Mr. ■ Alfred Barnes, Minister of Transport and one of the leaders of the Go-op-erative Movement, putting the main case for nationalisation at the beginning of the three days' debate in the Commons on the second reading, claimed that the Bill is the conclusion t and cons'Uimmation of a process which has long been going on. Not until the war was it found essential to regard inland transport as a whole for purposes of operation. That experience gave impebuis to trends tow.ards co-ordination ar.d state regulation that had long been apparent. It is instructive to see how these trends affected the various concems which it is now proposed to ai"nalgamate under a Public Transport Commission. Unified Railway System The undoubted benefits of a unified railway system in the First World War led to the .Government Railway Act 1931 to form 120 separate eompanies into four large groups territorially non-competitive bu.t from the traffic poii>t of view, highly competitive. Fixing stanid'ard rates and fares, classification and merchandise, conditions of carriage and packing and other regulative functions were entrusted to a Railway Rates Tribunal. Exceptional rates could be quoted but required the approval of the tribunal if over 40 per cent. ' helow standard. The charges were so fixed as to enable each company to earn a standard revenue based' on pre-war net earnings, including allowances for capital expenditure plus a share in ecnomies won hy amalgamation. No company has yet earned the standard revenue. The Government could require standardisation of equipment and the pooling of rollingstock 'and the schemc covered wages and' conditions of service. The Road and Rail Traffic Act 1933 authorised charges by railway eompanies to recover traffic from roads to which it was flowing. They consist of flat rates per weight, irrespective of mileage and apply to all "A" traders' traffic. Motor transport has always been subject to control by local authorities, primarily in the interests of puhlic .-•afety but since 1930 also for economie reason.s. Road legislation of the 30's was hased on the assumption that unregulated competition is wasteful and existing operators are entitled to protection from intruders. Public Yehicles Control Licensing of public service vehicles was put into the hands of regional traffic commissioners by the Road Traffic Act, 1930. It ensured that all passenger vehicles should be roadworthy, and vehicles licensed for one purpose should not be used for another. It restricted the growth of road passenger transport, for a new operator can ohtain a licence only hy satisfying the commissioners that existing servi es are inadequate. Under the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, the traffic commissioners were made licensing authorities for goods transported hy road. All passenger transport undertakings in the London area, municipal and private, were transferred to the London Passenger Transport Board, a public corporation by another Act of 1933, except main line railways, whose receipts from surburban traffic are pooled with the L.P.T.B. There are five system of port administration in Britain: State, trust or commission (which handles threequarters of the port traffic), municipal, railway company and harbour company. There are self-sufficient ports, and those which are assisted financially. In s'ome ports, all functions — pilotage, wharfage, loading, unloading* and warehousing — are undertaken by a central authority. In others they are under separate control, or a sing'le function may concern several authorities. Canals and inland waterways suffered Ifirst from railway development, then from road transport. Despite some recent improvements they on the whole have been neglected. The present need for co-ordination varies. With regard1 to passenger transport, it is jnot acute. Great efforts are made to fit road timetables to train timetahles. Long hauls are generally the prerogative of the railways, short hauls of road vehicles and the fares of both are controlled. Yital Services Maintained The Government during the war took control of all transport, since it was essential to he able to override normal practices and standards. All suitable private railway wagons were requisitioned and pooled with the railway companies' wagons to avoid sorting. The over-riding necessities in road passenger transport were to get workers to their jobs and maintain vital services, with a 'm'inimum of manpower, fuel, tyres and vehicles. Peacetime licenses gave way to a more flexible system of permits. These were designed to give the Minister direct control withouit setting up elaborate state machinery. For goods transport by road also, licensing was replaced hy the issue of permits. Regions had to be subdivided in order to deal with 1,000

fuel appliications necessitated by petrol rationing. Vehicles were grouped and eventually fuel could be obtained only through group organisers. A closely knit organisation dealt with long distance traffic, eonsisting of controlled undertakings which put their whole resourees at the disposal of the 'Minister. Operators were paid for the hire of their vehicles. The regional contrqller was made responsible for arranging the movement of traffic in vehicles of each region or which unloaded in it. He had to aecept controlled traffic coming into his region from rqore than 60 miles away and he would use these "foreign hased" vehicles for long-distance traffic in preference to initiating journeys with his own traffic. Most short- distance (under 60 miles) traffic was arrang'ed in smaller areas but thousands of short-distance vehicles came into the regional scheme. Harbours and Docks Concentration of powers relating to harbo,mrs and docks was vestecl in port and transit control — one of the factors in winning t'he battle of the seas. Co-ordination of port facilities with inland distribution was procured through regional port directors (for the Clyde, the Mersey, the Bristol Channel, the Humher, the north-east coast and London), together with port emergency committees and local representatives of the Ministry. Canal undertakings and certain canal carriers were also taken under the control of regional committees. War experience did not show a clear function al division of transport, since vairious forms were /eontrolled in conditions largely inapplieahle in peace. Since the war ended, in the absence of the normal criterion of cost, it has not been easy to allocate traffic according to general principles, or to arrange each class of traffic to be conveyed by the most suitable forai of transport. In the case of road transport, for example, the broad principle has been to conserve fuel and i-ubber, but this conflicts with the policy of using the roads to relieve the strain upon the railways. With unified control, however, the railways' capacity to deal with increased traffic was strikingly demonstrated, as was the mobility of road transport and the use of canals for a significafvt amount of bulky, cheap traffic. Railways and canals are still under the direct control of the Ministry of Transport. Road passenger transport and short-distance haulage by road operates as before and during the war, i.e. license issue is in the hands of area traffic commissioners. Longdistance haulage by road has been released from Government control, but haulers have agreed to provide the Ministry of Transport with essential transport if necessary. -Normal peacetime procedure applies to traffic to and from ports, but labour is still subject to the Essential Works Order which wili shortly be revoked. Dock labour on the Clyde and the Tyne is still employed by the Ministry of Transport.