Transportation—The Political Dimensions of an Economic Dilemma

Although we have a large and flexible transportation capacity in our economy, it is becoming inefficient and overly costly through misallocation and wasteful use of national resources. Private carriage of one's own goods and person survives and grows to a major degree because current public policy and regulation regarding common carriers inhibit their power to compete. At the same time, private carriage is crowding the capacity of its right of way and is using its vehicular units inefficiently. The current pattern of public transportation regulation tends to resist market entry and exit— that is, to resist market forces which shift resource allocation or investment from one mode of carriage or transportation enterprise to another. The principal control device is minimum-price regulation. Exempt, private, or common carrier interests in the market have relied on this aspect of public regulation and have vested, in varying degrees. Their political leverage is beginning to equal the economic weight of their investment and services, and, in consequence, improvement of transportation resource allocation has become in large measure a problem solvable only by the legislature and not by transportation management or by the forces of the free market.