"The Commercial Motor" Freight Exchange.
Page 4
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Our Staff and Resources Offered to Reduce Waste Mileage and Empty Running. Practical Steps to Lessen the Dislocation of Civilian Transport.
We hold this journal, through its Editorial office, at the disposal of all readers who find their ordinary business affairs, in conanon with those of all sections of the commercLal community, in a state of considerable dislocation. The withdrawal of both horse and motor tpansport, at short notice or no notice at all, tor State service, has already left many hundreds in a serious position from the point of view of early substitution of alternative means of transit. The uncertainty of railway communication is a matter of common knowledge, and the difficulties of the railways are certain to increase in relation to the threatened greater degree of their national obligations at this time of crisis. Coastwise shipping no longer furnishes assured relief to the railways.
We believe that we can come to the assistance of a number of producers and distributors who find themselves thus handicapped. We do not, of course, imagine that we can create facilities out of nothing, or that we can persuade owners who are left with some or all of their commercial motors to forget their own personal interests and connections. In opening, as we have done, a " Freight Exchange " at this office, we feel that we provide a centre of communication which must be of sen ice in reducing wastage and empty rimming. The trouble of any owner, be he an owner for his own purposes or a haulage contractor, when special loads have to be taken long or...emusual journeys, is to know how to get in touch with a return load.
The pages of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR, in conjunction with the services of the Editorial staff, are accordingly now placed at the service of such parties, to the end that their inconvenience and loss shall be reduced, and these services are available without our desiring any fee or reward for them.
We reproduce a mail card, of which thousands of copies were sent out from these offices last week. A further large batch was addressed and posted, on Monday and Tuesday, to additional parties who are likely to be glad to avail themselves of the facilities thus put forward in their interests. Ti will be noted that the first offer of help concerns another matter— the important one of keeping up supplies of driver; and mechanics for civilian duties. Nfore about the driver branch of our activities will be found on the next page; it is not an immediate factor in the subject with which we are dealing on this page.
We request that the maximum of notice shall be given, that the load capacity, make, horse-power, anti average point' to-point speed of any vehicle be notified to us, and that the matter of fixing rates be left to our discretion as a general rule. Owners are also requested to state whether they insist upon a return load for the complete and direct journey back to the point of origin of their own outward load, or whether they will additionally leave to us a reasonebb discretion to fix the best approximation to such a return load, and also a discretion as to f.01i18 deviation from the direct route home.
A corollary to the above offer is clearly a desire on our part to receive applications from traders who find themselves deprived of facilities for particular deliveries. We are now registering demands of the kind, with a view to their early fultihnent if possible, failing which we do not perpetuate a state of uncertainty, but, at our own expense, send telegraphic or other intimation within 24 hours of the receipt of an inquiry from a party who is incommoded by the unprecedented national circumstances and dangers. This part of our offer, tile converse of the other, is to assist traders who seek to find vehicles, whieh require return loads, and which loads they can provide on particular routes.
The above offer of a telegraphic reply one way or the other from these offices, Within 24 hours, in respect of our ability to fit together the requirements of two parties, is by no meons tin arbitrary regu lotion. We ore, in taking that course at our own cost, considering the convenience of applicants much more than our own. It will obviously be of assistance to its to be given a longer time limit, and we therefore ask that. some consideration may be extended to us to the end that we shall not work at high pressure in the absence of necessity.
G-roupeu ea registers have been prepared to deal with the whale of the United Kingdom, and it is probable that we shall be in a position to telegraph or ' " iminudietely on receipt of any inquiry. We bar loads below three ions for the present.
Every communication should be addressed " Freight Exchange," care of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR, 7-15, Rosebery Avenue, E.G., and if by telegram " Pressimus, Roth, London." Owners and others who are in a position to etete their requirements several days in advance will have the advantage of any results that may accrue front our being able in the interval of time to make particular inquiry; the reply may otherwise depend solely on the offers and requests unsatisfied On the day.