ROAD TRANSPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 September 1939, Page 9

ROAD TRANSPORT

PLANS FOR CO-ORDINATION

NATIONAL CONTROL.

GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS OUTLINED.

About two hundred operators representing national transport interests, town carriers, taxi-drivers, and passenger and mail services attended a meeting in Masterton yesterday afternoon to consider the methods to be adopted by the Government to bring all forms of public motor transport under a uniform system of national control, in accordance with the decisions of the Minister of Transport, dictated by the present state of emergency. The meeting was presided over by Mr L. T. Pearson, chairman of the Wairarapa Licensed Transport Federation. Mr S. McDowall, representing five national transport organisations and Mr W. J. Simm, representing the No. 2 Transport Licensing Authority, addressed the meeting. It was stated that the whole object of the plan was to give the industry, through local committees, but with a national committee in an advisory capacity, the opportunity of increasing its efficiency, with a view to the conservation of petrol supplies and coordination between services, which were absolutely imperative. The idea of national control, it was stated, was not new but enforcement had been hastened by the national emergency. The objects of the regulations were the attainment ,of the maximum of transport efficiency, the organisation of the industry to meet expected charges, conservation of petrol by obviating overlapping and the meeting of the reqquirements of mobilisation and reinstating of men. The regulations made compulsory the registration of every operator in any branch of the service in the association representing the district. The Government insisted that every branch of the industry must function on an approved national basis. The aim was the effective use of all vehicles, capital and manpower by what might be termed unified direction.