ABSTRACT
A major event of the late 1920s was the appointment of a Royal Commission to look into the whole problem of transport. The number of vehicles on the roads had grown enormously – private cars and commercial vehicles, passenger and goods. The railways were handicapped, too, by a series of obligations imposed by Parliament when the railways had a monopoly of public transport – publication of their rates, obligation to provide reasonable facilities, and prohibition of undue preference toward any particular customer. Few people took the trouble to define it and road haulage people were afraid that it would be construed so as to make road transport a mere feeder system for the railways. The Federation was strongly critical of the increased taxation on motor transport which they could not recover from their customers. The Long Distance Road Hauliers' complaint was that the railways often deliberately understated the load a bridge could carry in order to obstruct road transport.
