Beginning of the End
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N asking Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve, chairman of the Road Haulage Disposal Board, for advice on the number of vehicles which British Road Services should be allowed to keep for their "trunk service network," the Minister of Transport set him a difficult task. The Minister did not define trunk services and his omission to do so was probably deliberate.
Sir Malcolm apparently appreciated that there was a difference between trunk services, as generally understood in the industry, and other long-distance work, but in the absence of statistics, he was unable to distinguish them precisely. The British Transport Commission's records show about 3,300 vehicles as running exclusively on long-distance scheduled services, and the Road Haulage Association's reluctant -estimate of 2,500 to 3,000 as an appropriate number of extra vehicles to assign to B.R.S. for trunk work was near the mark.
In addition, however, many other vehicles are, according to Sir Malcolm, "rendering other services to industry on a fairly regular basis." Some supplement the scheduled vehicles on regular routes. Others operate on triangular routes to avoid empty running, and still more carry traffic for regular customers to different destinations. Feeder and reserve vehicles are also required to enable these facilities to be maintained.
No Definition If the Minister had deafly defined the trunk network as comprising only the long-distance scheduled, services and had asked to be informed of the. minimum number of vehicles needed to provide them, B.R.S. would have retained probably not more than an extra 3,500 vehicles. He did not do so. Sir Malcolm has therefore accepted a broad interpretation of "trunk network" and has recommended that the State undertaking should have an additional 5,409 vehicles for "general haulage."
It will thus have 7,750 general haulage vehicles, which may engage in short-distance as well as long-distance work. To this figure must be added 1,222 vehicles in the Pickfords and contract-hire sections; 398 engaged solely on railway cartage, and 200 service vans running under C licences—a total effective fleet of about 9,570, plus 398 vehicles unsaleable in transport unit's.
This calculation presupposes that 1,982 contract-hire vehicles to be sold without A licences on the termination of existing contracts will not be replaced by new vehicles with new contract A licences. B.R.S. are entitled to negotiate fresh hire contracts and will zealously do so. Hauliers are not told the identity of customers whose contracts are ended and they cannot easily submit competitive tenders. In the circumstances, it will be surprising if the B.R.S. contract-hire fleet is greatly diminished. The total operational fleet of the State road haulage• undertaking may well be over 11,000 vehicles.
Plums for B.R.S.
B.R.S. have done extremely well out of the deal. Not only will they keep far more general haulage vehicles than seems reasonable, but they will retain a strong hold on various specialized spheres of transport. Sir Malcolm's recommendation of additional vehicles, which the Government have accepted, is not the maximum, for it is based on the assumption that B.R.S. will continue to have the right to apply for extra A licences.
In making his Computation, he took into account "the extra strength whichwill accrue to private fleets when the remainder of the sales have taken place." According to his report to the Minister, 2,295 vehicles remain for disposal in transport units-1,540 in list 12 and 755 not-yet offered—and his recommendation is apparently based on the assumption that all will be sold.
List 12 contains 719 vehicles in 30 substantial units with premises which have already failed to find buyers, and may still be unacceptable to investors. In addition, there are -still 4,106 vehicles to be disposed of in B.R.S. (Parcels), Ltd., and the sale of 498 meat vehicles, over which the Commission and the Disposal Board disagreed, has still to be completed. Even if the sales now pending are effected, the recent concept of B.R.S. as a purely trunk haulage undertaking will be vitiated. Admittedly, over two-thirds of their ultimate fleet will probably be engaged in long-distance work, but they will still have Many -ancillary activities which should be surrendered to private enterprise. The Minister's decision to preserve the present trunk network has been based on the demands of many transport users, but no one is known to have asked that the other activities of B.R.S. should be continued.
There can be little quarrel with the Minister's reluctance to break up the long-distance network, but the number of vehicles to be used in it, and the future functions of B.R.S., are matters for serious dispute.