Make the Best of Keen Competition
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Says J. M. Barr,
Assistant Managing Director, Wallace Arnold Tours, Ltd.
Close Discussion Needed Between All Sections of Passenger Transport : B.T.C. Should Not Stand Aloof: Concerted Drive Required to Keep Traffic Passing by Public Transport
DUR1NG the next 12 months coach and bus operators are likely to face the stiffest competition they have known for years. Many responsible persons in all branches of the industry have been brought up either in wartime or in years of plenty and, although prosperity is likely to continue in general, they will find that it will not be the, same automatic blessing for the bus industry.
Private cars have long been a fierce competitor and will become fiercer. One has only to read the November figures for hire-purchase sales of cars to realize the truth of this. But the demand for other consumer goods for the home and garden is just as likely, if more indirectly, to affect the industry, particularly that section dealing with excursions and tours.
Social revolutions change fashions, family life and our way of living generally. There is an increasing emphasis on the need for material goods and a diminishing demand for less obvious signs of keeping up with the Joneses, such as a day at the seaside, in the country, or at the races.
The conclusion to be drawn from these changes—if we accept them—is that operators Must make their services more attractive by cheapening them. If people spend more on material goods than on other pleasures, the proportion of income left, even today, for other services and entertainments is smaller.
The coach and bus industry bases its fares on its costs. We are not allowed, like other industries, to exploit shortages or high demands, and, in a great many instances, in fact, we operate at below cost.
Under present-day conditions it is the plain duty of operators to maintain the fine tradition of good, but inexpensive, travel that was the keynote of the great pioneers. They must also give a standnrd of living to employees second to none—much of their success depends on the personal quality of courtesy and efficiency shown to the public by the men and women who work the machines, so employers must attract the best—maintain a high standard of safety, and pay shareholders so that they will cOntinue to provide capital for necessary improvement.
These are formidable burdens and they are becoming impossible to shoulder while operators have to make a fantastic contribution to the Exchequer. All our competitors have been helped—the railways by vast loans and the non-payment of tax on diesel train fuel, consumergoods manufacturers by the easing of purchase tax and credit restrictions, and private-car manufacturers by the relief of credit restrictions and the lessening of profits Passenger operators still pay tax on their basic raw material—fuel—and a heavy contribution to Excise duty, plus an increased profits tax. If standards are to be maintained, and fares put or kept where they ought to be, the industry will require help from the Chaticellor. Let him ponder the case of some of the people who cannot afford expensive travel—schoolchildren, young sports teams, oldage pensioners, Darby and Joan clubs, choir outings, apprentices, people with young families and so on.
Coaches and buses to many such people are the only possible form of travel and a great source of pleasure. In 1959 there will be fewer facilities for them if the problem of operating costs, inflated by taxation, is not considered as seriously by the taxmen as by operators.
Competitive conditions this year will, I hope, have some good results. For example, as more promoters of Continental holidays turn to air and the use of foreign-owned coaches for their ipclusive tours, it may be that British Railways will consider lowering the rates for the cross-Channel shipment of coaches—a high price at present, compared with the cost of shipping cars—and insurance companies may reduce' their Continental cover rates. Both these charges are serious Obstacles to British coach operators competing with French, Belgian, Swiss and German operators for the coach-hire section of the many " package " tours of the Continent from America.
More rural services will be streamlined, particularly where, at present, there is more than one operator on a given route.
Better staff relations will be enjoyed within the industry and the excellent employer-employee understanding existing up to three or four years ago will be restored as a result of the full appreciation of. the industry's difficulties by the trade unions. Looking back it is hard to know why there was this lapse, unless its basic cause was that, in a period of full employment, an industry operating under a system of controlled fares, and paying a high degree of taxation, was unable to give its servants the same degree of prosperity as other industries.
A real and profound problem that will be faced this year, and for some years to come, is the relationships of the various sections of the coach and bus industry with each other. We would divide the industry, as Caesar did Gaul, into three parts—that section represented by the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association, that owned by the B.E.T. and that owned by the British Transport Commission. I omit the municipalities, because their problems are largely apart. There is, at national level at least, as well as in some localities; a common forum among the P.V.O.A. operators and the B.E.T. companies in the Public Transport Association. But there is none with the B.T.C. We have in Yorkshire what is I think, a unique creation—the Yorkshire Regional Fares Committee.
Although its terms of reference are, as its title suggests, limited, its membership ensures representation for every section of the industry in the Yorkshire Traffic Area, including British Railways when occasion requires it, and it considers from time to time practical problems and makes recommendations that are based upon the diversity of views put forward by its members. Through the years this body has given genuine assistance to operators, Traffic Commissioners and the public by bringing together highly competitive operators into an atmosphere of practical and moderate debate.
This example could well be copied on a wider scale and with wider terms of reference. The pooling of knowledge, the pooling of booking facilities, the development of new traffics, the abolition of restrictive clauses by the railways in their agreements with agents, the economic handling of existing traffics—perhaps, but only perhaps, the solution of private-hire problems—might be the results.
Certainly the stringent conditions of 1959 will make operators competitively co-operative, and I feel that the barest outline of my suggestion might have some reflection in the realities of future years.
B.T.C. Less Co-operative
At present, however, the B.T.C. is probably less prone to discuss problems of integrating transport with nonB.T.C. companies than the other sections of the industry are with each other. None of us knows how, in the future, politics will affect the ownership of the industry, but if, as seems likely, the three divisions remain for many years to come, it will be increasingly important for all sections to discuss common problems.
There are undoubtedly many functions that can best be fulfilled by small or medium-sized coach companies, as opposed to large bus companies, and vice versa. Road operators can perform certain functions better than rail, and vice versa. Thoughts in all sections of the industry should be towards preserving and creating traffic for all public service transport and not towards the best means for preventing the growth of particular enterprises, nor towards the best way of transferring existing traffics from one section of public transport to another.
In future thinking, none can afford to forget the new motorways and other road improvements that are being built. Once called in the Wind in the Willows" the " open " road—a romantic, free and fast conception—they now are the very arteries of industry. The steps taken in recent years by the Minister of Transport to speed up the road programme deserve unstinted praise. The growth of fight industry and its consequent need for flexibility, the expansion of private-car traffic, the changes from coal to oil, and, in future, to atomic power, mean that roads will become increasingly important.
The obvious desire of the present Government is to keep full employment and a natural corollary to the urge to spend money freely will be speeding up of the road programme in 1959. As the roads become clearer and faster, it is to be hoped that the Coach and bus industry will be permitted to benefit in full measure: new roads should mean new traffic and, as the benefits start to be obvious, I hope that a more liberal interpretation of the phrase "in the public interest" will be permitted (in relation to longdistance travel).
Let the Public Benefit
To many of us this phrase at times seems to read "in the interests of British Railways." If new roads are to be built and existing roads improved at public expense, is it not only fair that the public should benefit: if coach and bus operators are willing and economically able to carry passengers at fares considerably less than rail fares, is it not in the public interest to let them travel by bus instead of forcing traffic on to the railways or to private cars?
Lastly, I think it right to mention general engineering problems, and to discuss them in relation to selling or advertising costs.
It has been said that either a bad engineer or a good advertising manager can bankrupt a business quicker than anyone! The tendency to give this absurdity some truth will be powerful in 1959. The salesmen, or traffic men, will want a bigger advertising appropriation to prevent traffic falling and the engineer will be urged to economize more and more to pay for the advertising.
As everyone is an expert in advertising (including engineers) and as only engineers know anything about engines (and they have a habit of experimenting first and knowing afterwards!) the engineers will have a sticky time. There are limits to which one should not go in mortgaging the future and it is to be hoped that engineers will not be imposed upon too much this coming year. Their contribution to efficiency has been enormous in recent years and can hardly be expected to increase: let those amateurs who meddle with engineering problems and the like remember:
Lord Finchley tried to mend the electric light It struck him dead and serves him right It is the duty of the " traffic " man To employ the artisan.
On this light note I leave the prospects for 1959 in the hope that we shall derive pleasure from achievement in the face of fierce competition, have fewer taxes to pay, and will prove that our industry is so resilient that we shall not require subsidies or any other palliative to keep our buses going or to keep people going by bus.