The motor truck is a part of the transportation equipment in every
community. Its use more nearly to capacity will help solve local
problems.
More complete use means loads both ways. A motor truck usually carries a
good load to its destination, whether the destination is in the same
community or in another city. Too often, however, the truck makes the
return trip with no load. Every time this occurs there is waste of at
least half the capacity of a truck to do work in transportation.
Owners of trucks do not wish half the earning power of their vehicles to
be lost. Manufacturers and merchants with goods piled up and awaiting
shipment do not like to see empty trucks pass their doors. Both need a
local clearing house for information about the trucks that are available
and the shipments that are ready--i. e., to bring together loads and
empty trucks.
Such a clearing house the local commercial organization can easily
provide. It will not ordinarily entail any special expense. It will
promote cooperation in the community. It will render a very real service
for which business men will be thoroughly grateful.
Return-Load Bureau is a convenient name for a clearing house. The bureau
should ascertain the established lines of trucks that run regularly on
fixed routes and the part of their capacity that is not being utilized.
It should then obtain information from all owners of trucks used for
private hauling, getting statements about the capacity of each truck,
how far its capacity is used, between what points the capacity is
unused, if the unused capacity can be made available for other persons
at a reasonable price, etc. Besides gathering this information the
bureau can make known to everyone that whenever a truck is to make a
trip without a load the bureau will respond to a telephone inquiry by
endeavoring to give the name of a person who wants to send a load over
the route in question. Efforts can be made also to have drivers who
bring loads by truck from other points telephone to the bureau in order
to get return loads.
At the same time the bureau can enlist the cooperation of business men
who may have shipments to make.
In order that any driver or other person from out of town may quickly
ascertain if there is a return load for him, each bureau should be
specially listed in the telephone directory.
With incidental questions the bureau will not usually need to deal. For
example, it can leave the compensation that is to be paid to negotiation
between the parties.
In England Return-Load Bureaus have proved of great assistance. They
have been most developed in the United States by commercial
organizations in Connecticut. Experience has demonstrated that the
assistance they can render is very real and important, and that they can
be organized advantageously in many communities where they have not as
yet been tried.