Consulting the oracles
Page 42
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SO MANY preconceptions have dissolved in the fuel crisis and the parlous economic situation that it would be surprising if politicians were not changing some of their own opinions. In making up their minds they would inevitably have regard to the conclusions reached by various groups of experts, much in the same way as the rulers in the ancient world would take no action until they had consulted the often ambiguous oracles. An analysis of what the experts say today may provide a useful clue to the lines along which the Government will be thinking tomorrow.
Nothing could be more oracular and obscure than some of the diagrams in the Transport and Road Research Laboratory's report on dynamic loads and vibrations caused by heavy commercial vehicles. Fortunately there is also an interpretation. No politician who might wish to reopen the question of lorry weights need have any doubt about the message.
The tests on which the report is based showed that vehicles with gross weights as high as 44 tons (44.7 tonnes) "need not generate larger dynamic loads or vibrations" than are produced by some existing 32=ton (32.5=tonne) vehicles. Good news for hauliers; perhaps not so good for anybody to whom any suggestion of an increase in lorry weights is a sin against the environment.
It is more than likely that such a person would also favour a switch of traffic from road to rail, or better still to inland waterways. Up to now he has seen possibilities in the growing need to conserve energy. After all, nobody will deny that in general freight transport by rail useses less energy per ton-mile, than transport by road. As in both cases the source of energy is liquid fuel, there seems an obvious propaganda point in favour of the railways.
On cue to meet this argument is another report from another oracle, this time the National Economic Development Office, on the subject of Energy Conservation in the United Kingdom. The straightforward comparison, it points out, is rarely the relevant one either in physical or economic terms. The proper comparison is between combined road and rail transport and road transport, except in special cases such as the transport of coal. Other fac
tors have to be considered, including the cost of loading and unloading, the relative distance and the journey time.
Profitable changes from road to road-rail-road are likely to be fewand, says the report, they are"doubtful as candidates for improved efficiency in the use of energy, except in special circumstances". A much better way of saving energy would be a change in the weight limits and axle-loading limits.
Joining forces
At this point the two reports join forces. The economists come down in favour of heavier lorries, for their own reasons. The men from the laboratory simultaneously reach the conclusion that heavier vehicles do not necessarily mean more damage to the roads and the environment.
The benefit from an increase in weight is also shown, perhaps unexpectedly, in a Greater London Council report on some of the initial findings of the Greater London Transportation Survey. Between 1962 and 1971 the volume of goods delivered in London went up by 40 per cent, but there was little or no increase in the number of journeys.
The main reason, says the report, was the change in operation and composition of the goods vehicle fleet. While its number remained the same. there was a greater proportion of large vehicles. This trend accompanied the geographical concentration of depots and retail outlets, coupled with improved loading techniques which made larger loads feasible.
Here then are three very different groups of experts with no axe to grind reaching various conclusions, all pointing to the advantages, or questioning the supposed disadvantages, of allowing heavier lorries? Nobody would suggest that the experts have been suborned. But as members of the public they cannot ignore or escape changes in the general coimate of opinion.
Any daring politician, in or out of office, who wants to propose breaching the 32-ton barrier can count on support from the oracles. It may even be that they not only point the way to the Government but show us the way that the Government is likely to take.
by Janus