Highway Transport Commitee Council of National Defence, Bulletins 1-5 | Page 4

Commerce of the United States, Riggs Building, Washington, D. C.)
MOTOR-TRUCK TRANSPORTATION.
RETURN-LOAD BUREAU.
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.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Highway Transport Commitee Council of National Defence, Bulletins 1-5, by US Government
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIGHWAY TRANSPORT COMMITEE ***
***** This file should be named 18878.txt or 18878.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/7/18878/
Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use