Q One hears so much about the possibilities of transferring freight
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from road to rail but few hard facts to support the contention. Are any available?
A It will be strongly argued by the
supporters of freedom of choice that the present balance between road and rail is equitable and based on the level of service provided and the customer's willingness to pay the rate charged.
,Leaving aside, however, the admittedly contentious issue as to who determines what is efficient transport, some statistics recently issued by the Ministry of Transport have a bearing on this issue. Unfortunately. as with many of the transport statistics issued in the last year or so, they are somewhat dated since they relate to freight moved in this country in 1962. But even so it is unlikely that more recent proportions will be substantially different, although the totals tend to increase year by year because of an overall increase in national productivity, coupled with a continuing swing towards road transport.
The estimated total tonnage carried by road transport in 1962 was 1,248m. Of this total only 77.5m. was carried 100 miles or over. or barely 6 per cent. Separating these totals as between the professional haulier and Clicence operator, of a total of 509.5m. tons carried by the haulier less than 10 per cent (49.7m. tons) was for hauls of over 100 miles. As was to be expected the amount of C-licence operation over 100 miles was even less-27.8m. tons out of a total of 738.5m. tons or under 4 per cent.
Bearing in mind the high cost of transhipment from one form of transport to another coupled with the fact that there are many flows of traffic which, as the Beeching Report admitted, are quite incompatible with movement by rail, the real opportunity for transfer of freight from road to rail when viewed as a percentage of total national freight movement is much smaller than is often claimed in some quarters.