The coordination of transport was a live topic 30 or so years ago when concern was shown at railway losses and their bad effects on the economy of the country. More recently, when much greater losses have been accepted with apparent equanimity, there seemed less interest in the problem. The subject was revived, if only temporarily, by evidence tended to the Royal Commission of Inquiry (1961) on the State Services in New Zealand. This evidence showed differing views on the implications of transport coordination, and at least one witness suggested seriously that coordination was part of the apparatus of the totalitarian State.
In the broadest sense, coordination implies that each of the various forms of transportation has some sphere of usefulness in which it is most efficient. Thus new forms of transport have attracted business from the older and less efficient forms. Horse-drawn transport was partly replaced by the railway and, later, by the motor vehicle; the railway, too, has been partly replaced by the motor vehicle. Air transport presents an ever-growing challenge. The growth of the newer forms means that the old ones have been left with surplus capacity. Successive Governments have considered it wise to ensure that the older forms, in which public money is invested, are given legislative protection. The problem is to decide what are to be the spheres of operation of each form, and so to develop an efficient national transport system with a minimum reliance upon the country's resources.
There are four State Departments concerned with the administration of transport – Railways, Civil Aviation, Marine, and Transport. The National Roads Board, comprising representatives of road users, local bodies, and Government officials, makes independent decisions of great importance to road transport. Although one minister holds the portfolios of Railways, Transport, and Civil Aviation, each of these Departments reports directly to him. There are no other technical or specialist advisers interposed between the Minister and his Departments to help to resolve the inevitable conflicts of interest. The Transport Department, when it came into being in 1929, was given some general responsibility for coordination, but it was also charged with the detailed administration of the economic and safety laws relating to road transport. These have become so complex and numerous that today its limited resources are spent almost entirely on regulating road transport. In contrast with the practices of other countries, it is deeply involved in traffic-law enforcement – work which in 1929 was considered to belong essentially to the police and not to the then newly formed Transport Department. On 31 March 1965, 356 of its staff of 768 were uniformed traffic officers.
The lack of cohesion in the administrative structure and the small resources of the Transport Department have, so far, prevented the carrying out of any logical national transport policy. The report of the Royal Commission on the State Services drew attention to the need for a departmental reorganisation to improve coordination, the formulation of transport policy, and the control of public expenditure on transport. At the time of writing the Government has not pronounced on these recommendations; sectional interests would seem to prefer the status quo.
The first attempt seems to have been made in 1926, when regulations under the Board of Trade Act, later incorporated in the Motor Omnibus Traffic Act of 1926, gave local bodies power to control and, in effect, to limit the competition of omnibuses against tramway services. There was an advisory council for a short time in 1929, which ceased to function when Parliament did not pass the empowering measure. The crisis in the public finances, to which the railways largely contributed by their inability to pay the full assessed interest on their working capital, resulted in the passing of the Transport Licensing Act in 1931. This measure aimed to limit entry to the road-transport industry in order to give some protection to the State railways. In 1933 a Transport Coordination Board of three members was formed to coordinate, as far as possible, road, sea, and rail transport. The Board tried to take a broad view of the transport industry, but its powers were inadequate and it had many critics to whom “coordination” apparently meant the elimination of competitors. The new Labour Government, which got rid of the Board in 1936, apparently accepted the idea of integration as a long-term goal. By 1939 many long-distance goods and passenger services competing with the railways had been taken over by the Railways Department. After the war coordination again became an issue of importance and a Transport Development Committee, under the aegis of the Organisation for National Development, held meetings until 1948, in which year legislation empowered the formation of a Transport Coordination Council. The new body held its only meeting late in 1949, for in the following year it was put out of existence by the National Government. It was announced that it would be replaced by committees of men who understood the local conditions; they would therefore advise on any specific transport problems. Many committees were appointed to consider problems, some of which had no relation whatever to the broad problem of the coordination and inter-relation of the various forms of transport. In 1953 the Minister implied in the annual report of the Transport Department that there was no need for any coordinating body, hinting that this was the function of the 11 road transport licensing authorities. In 1955, in 1959, and in 1962 two committees of members of Parliament in the Government party considered general transport problems which apparently could not be handled by the existing administrative machinery. In 1958 the Minister of Railways set up an interdepartmental committee to consider the whole subject of coordination. The report of this committee has not yet been released.
The bewildering variety of attempts to devise machinery to solve what might be termed the normal problems of transport (including coordination) are the inevitable result of inadequate departmental administrative structure. Many of the matters considered by the numerous committees would have been dealt with more effectively by a Department of State responsible for all forms of transport. This is the practice in many other and larger countries. The problems, however, will remain in New Zealand as long as transport administration is fragmented.
by Norman Frederick Watkins, M.COM., Research Officer, Transport Department, Wellington.