The Use of Smaller Vehicles.
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Appropriateness or Expediency ?
(By the Editor.) Advocacy of the use of smaller types of commercial motors, ranging down to the 5-cwt. parcelcar, may properly be based either upon claims of expediency or appropriateness. We have advocated their use on the latter ground for many years, but never have we suggested that the smaller vehicles can deal more cheaply with a given total weight than larger ones. The basic reason for paying attention to the merits. of parcelcars and light vans is found in the fact that a horse van is seldom if ever worked at a lower inclusive cost than 50. per mile run. That established cost figure is not appreciated as it should be by owners of horse-drawn vehicies, and we once again ask consideration for it.
Cases have frequently come under our notice where one-horse vans have been working to the apparent satisfaction of their owners at costs varying between is. and Is. 6d. per mile run, whilst we even came across a single instance in London where the cost went so high as 3s. per mile run. This last-named instance was a hiring contract at 23 a week for horse and man, the hirer finding the van, whilst the work to be done involved journeys which totalled just below 20 miles a week. This one-horse van had usually to be avail able between 8 and 6 p.m., five days a week, and to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. It is, as we have systematically pointed out in numerous articles and series of articles, omy on proved appropriateness for the jobs in hand that sellers of parcelears and light vans on pneumatic tires can hope to excel standard types of 10-cwt., 15-cwt„ and 1-ton commercial motors on solid tires. The smallest types are, strictly speaking, not in competition with the members of the commercial-motor family next in order of size above them, but with the pedal-propelled cycle. They have distinctly to make good their case in that direction, and to oust the means of delivery upon which so many tradesmen have been pleased to rely, rather than to attempt to compete with the 10-cwt., the 15-cwt., and the 1-ton van. The more-capacious types of four-wheeled vans cannot be excelled by the parcelcar or the light van, either in cost or performances, once they have to deal with the business requirements of a trader who is concerned with those considerations, and who above all has sufficient deliveries to make. We adhere to the view that there is scope for each type, but we must again very pointedly dissociate ourselves from any school of thought which belittles the 1-ton van. As to the competitive factors which have to be taken into account between parcelears and light vans on the one side, and pedal-propelled cycles on the other, we must refer readers to our issues of the 19th and 26th February and 5th March last. We pointed out, in August last, immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, that one promising means of recovery for the harassed owner of heavier commercial motors, who has suffered by impressment, was that he should have recourse to smaller units and more of them. That was the counsel of expediency. It has been repeatedly justified by events, and its force still holds good. The advice was given to our readers, to turn away temporarily from three-ton, four-ton and heavier models., and to give a turn to 2-ton, 30-ewt., and smaller models. We did not give them that advice because we imagined that it was cheaper for them to use the smaller units than the larger ones, but because we knew that it was both cheaper and more convenient for them to remain users of commercial motors of some kind than to revert to horses, or to horse-cum-rail methods of delivery.
The expediency of employing small units can be gauged from cold figures. The one-horse van, with all proper costs taken into account, costs its owner not less than 22 15s. a week ; a pair-horse van, similarly, costs not less than 24 10s. a week. The average costs per mile may be taken at 50. and 8d., on the basis of 120 miles and 135 miles weekly, respectively. For motorvans, given work sufficient to allow them to average 60 miles per day, the "all in" costs are : 5-cwt. parcelcar (pneumatic tires), 20. light van, up to 7 cwt. of load (pneumatic tires), 3i.d. : 10-cwt. van (solid tires), 3d. ; 1-ton van (solid tires), 5d.' 2-ton van (solid tires), ; 3-ton van (solid tires), 80. These figures are for petrol. A rubber-tired steam lorry, for a 3i-tori load, on a 330-mile week, will cost 7d. per mile, and a 3-ton steam wagon, on steel tires, with an average performance capacity of 200 miles of running a week, will cost 10d. per mile.
Anybody who cares to write to us for a free sheet of our average working costs will be able to examine the details for himself. The important point is, taking the foregoing as the bases of reckoning, that the costs per ton-mile, with the different types and sizes, works out as follow : One-horse van, 10-cwt. net load, 11d., or 1-ton net load 5d.; pair-horse van, 1-ton load 8d., 2-ton load 441. ; 5-cwt. parcelcar, 10d. ; 7-cwt. light van, 10d. ; 10-cwt van, 7d.; 1-ton van, 5d. ; 2-ton van, ; and 3-ton van, 21d. The realization of these motor costs is, we must not fail to point out, dependent upon reasonable handling and good mileage. Yobody will be well advised, except as a matter of expediency or appropriateness, to give a preference to smaller units. Where loads can never be found for the larger ones, buyers will be acting wisely to keep low down in the scale at all times, but there can be no greater act of unwisdom than to ignore the very material advantages which attach to the purchase and use of 15-cwt. and 1-ton vans for the ordinary delivery purposes of tradesmen of average resources.