Motor-Vehicle Transport Pricing in Lebanon

Abstract

WNESTERN transport observers are accustomed to considerable precision in motor-vehicle pricing and controls. Truck and bus operation have been regulated for decades, and bureaucrats and legislatures have developed over time organizational frameworks w-hich are relatively stable, rational and observable. In the Mliddle East, the regulation of transport enterprise has been much more haphazard than in the W-Vest. Theories of control were borrowed from the W-est, especially during the Mandate period, but over the years these systems, modified in large part to control foreign-owned monopolistic railways, have resulted in substantial deviations from W-Vestern practice. Present pricing practices in the Mliddle East appear confusing and anarchistic, but out of chaos comes a certain order, which this paper attempts to describe. The bulk of transport by common carrier in Lebanon is performed by motor vehicles operating in a relatively uncontrolled market. The few existing railways are not used for local traflic to any extent, and animals and coastal shipping are too slow and expensive except in restricted special situations. Thus in most local markets, motorvehicle transport prices are the only relevent transport rates. Mlotor-vehicle common carrier operations in Lebanon are rather informal by Western standards. Highway operations over the relatively complex and complete network can be divided into four main groupings: dry cargo trucking, tank trucking, buses and services. 1 Trucks seldom operate on schedules as common carriers. The standard operating technique in dry cargo operations is for the shipper to lease the entire truck for a given haul or a given period of time. Drivers are usually supplied by the truck owner. Payment is based on the potential loads which can be carried in the given truck, which results in a volume-weight type rate analogous to ocean shipping rates. Tariffs are seldom printed. Tank trucks in local services are used almost exclusively for hauling petroleum products from refineries at Tripoli and Sidon to storage and consumption points in other parts of the country, most notably Beirut. Since this