Vladimír Starosta: The transfer of goods from road to rail is a utopia
Vladimír Starosta solves truck transport problems on two levels. As the president of the association of road hauliers Česmad Bohemia, he tries to defend the sector from political interference, and as a co-owner of OK Trans Praha, he has to deal with such interference in operation. “I don’t like the way Europe is governed today,” he says, whose vehicles the businessman travels across the continent.
How do carriers, who often call themselves canaries in the mine, perceive this year’s economic development?
We are experiencing quieter times without extreme fluctuations, as if we had a period of stabilization and reason. The numbers do not exceed 2015, but we are not complaining. I don’t even consider it normal for everything to grow indefinitely. However, the main limit of our business is man.
Do you encounter the problem of lack of drivers?
Yes, even though I am talking mainly about drivers, I perceive a shortage almost everywhere, in industry, agriculture and elsewhere. For drivers, the natural annual decline is far greater than the increase.
Aren’t low wages the other side?
We have a program for drivers in this company this year, where we add money to them in two steps. In annual numbers, this will make a relatively large number in the order of millions of crowns. That is a necessity. But in my opinion, money will not solve the structural problem in the medium term. Where should we take the driver? Drag them from factories?
That’s what I’m asking you. I have noticed opinions that transport is saved by women, such as supermarket cashiers. Or do you bet on self-driving cars?
Yes, drivers – whether men or women – from other industries struggled. Today we have six drivers in the company, which we never had in the past. But this capacity is exhausted. In my opinion, the road to the future leads through semi-autonomous or autonomous cars. They are already technically developed.
What are semi-autonomous cars?
This could change the demands on drivers. Today, every transport company is looking for an experienced driver who controls the vehicle and has technical knowledge. They must be able to carry out the vehicle in difficult conditions, such as slipping on a slippery road or driving through bottlenecks in the infrastructure. In this, technology could help significantly in the future, and we could look for a person with different criteria.
Do you think with lower demands?
Others. I’ll give you an example. One of our beginning drivers, quite fundamentally, did not manage to pass through two intersections, because he does not have the size and length of the set in his blood. Demolished public lighting and a passenger car. Technology could make sure they didn’t allow it. Then they could require people with other qualities if they want less skillful but need more proficient in terms of computer literacy, language skills and so on. He won’t have to drive that much, but in the meantime he’ll take care of the letters. And maybe he will no longer be called a driver, but a truck operator, for example, because people at a prestige care a lot about titles.
Will we see fully automatic trucks?
I personally would like that very much, but it still has a long way to go. Technology is at a very high level, but politics and law in Europe are lagging behind technology. The question, for example, is what will happen when that car causes an accident. Why doesn’t the company deal with it much faster when technology is behind the door?
“Trucking will pay dearly for everything that may be ruined. The railway should not complain about the road that it pays for it, the opposite is true“
And wouldn’t it worry you to move the cargo to the dorms?
The transfer of goods from road to rail is a complete chimera and utopia. Politicians know this well. But they also know that it is an attractive topic for people. The truck is big, people are afraid of it, it gets in the way of the road. But no one wants to hear that these people in the very way of life predetermine that the road will always win over the railway. We are all used to wanting everything as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible and in the best possible quality. We as carriers are not the ones who determine which way the goods will go. It chooses the customer.
Doesn’t there be any leverage, such as a toll or a dormitory fee?
It is such an evergreen along with the railroad that they pay a toll and we don’t. If you take it apart economically, truck transport generates huge revenues, in the order of over one hundred billion crowns. We pay VAT, excise tax, tolls and so on. And the money does not return to the highway infrastructure at all, but railway corridors are built for it, for example. Most of the state will move completely differently. Trucking will pay dearly for everything that may be ruined. The railway should not complain about the road that it pays for it, the opposite is true. Today is the exact time of arrival in each. And that is crucial why the market chooses road transport. With delivery for production lines, there is no delay in the order of hours. There are fatal consequences.
Your company often travels to Britain. What do you call Brexit?
I add a lot of emotion to it, but I wouldn’t be afraid of any dramatic effects. On the contrary, I see one positive. I have not liked developments in the EU at all in recent years. I applauded a lot when we joined the Union, I feel like a European. A tandem of Germans and French has ruled here for decades, and the rest of the members are riding. As long as the Germans and the French made the right decisions, it was a relatively comfortable imprisonment. But now the Germans and the French have made big mistakes, which began in the monetary field, continuing, for example, through minimum wage laws to the fatal failure of the refugee crisis. None of the normal people should help people in need and need no policy to do so, but what has happened in migration policy is inexplicable. And if someone doesn’t realize he’s making mistakes, he can get a box. And Brexit was such a big box that I have hopes that the tandem will wake up and return to rational thinking.
“Nothing happens with the transport to England after Brexit, because there is a mess there now. The delay is far greater due to the refugee crisis than if there were a border procedure“
You mentioned immigrants. Do your drivers still face them on their way to Calais, England?
The situation is still far from a standard, but it is slightly better than a few months ago. At that time, in some cases, it was about life, there was violent damage to vehicles, and it began to complicate our relationships with customers. We drive a lot for the Jaguar Land Rover… you come to the factory and six refugees run out of the car. This has happened to us more than once. The customer can then say that this company is incompetent and we do not want it here. Which lifted me off my chair. The driver is not a security guard and his options have long been exhausted. Some components in France and England should take care of this and not make a scapegoat for a transport company.
Did it affect the economy of those transports?
Yes, we have lost. We had big problems at all with rest and driving times, each sleeping stop literally meant raids. The situation has calmed down a bit now, we had to explain it and negotiate the price of the threat, because in the long run it does not make sense to take the risk of employees, loss and damage to goods. We have agreed and we are getting a higher price. The most expensive thing about all this is that the transport takes a day longer. Throughput is decreasing, cars are piling up there, incidents are being dealt with at length. And now I’m going back to your Brexit question. Nothing happens with the transport to England, because there is a mess already. The time delay is far greater than if there was a borderline procedure.
Some Western European countries have begun to enforce their minimum wage on foreign carriers. Do you feel it?
When I say that I do not like the way Europe is governed today, this is the worst thing that could have happened in our industry. I look at it with simple reasoning. We joined the EU and there were some rules. The point was that they were gaining our markets and we were gaining their markets. Today I feel that they will change the rules. They have factories here today, which I quite like, but no one in Western Europe could have thought that I would get everything. Logically, the new members also wanted to get. That is why we dominate in services. In the West, promises to its own voters have come to an end when one state enforces its minimum wage on the jobs and employers of another state. It is not suitable for transport at all, the driver passes several countries during the day, for example, his family still lives here, and not there.
Does a Czech driver really not even reach the minimum wage in Germany?
Not at all, in Germany it is 8.5 euros per hour.
Do you keep it?
Nobody observes that. The carriers were divided into two groups. Some signed their customers to hold it, others did not sign anything. That is our case. There is a relatively large sanction for this. But since the EU has launched a reprimand against Germany and France, it can be said that a kind of moratorium on sanctions has been observed so far.
What if it passes?
Again, we come to the point where the politicians’ reasoning is wrong. In the end, only the people of Western Europe, that is, their voters, pay for it. Because of these low wages, our employers are getting rich. If we had to pay for it – it would be tremendously and challenging – there are only two options. Local customers pay the carrier more money to pay the salary, or the carrier goes bankrupt. In the end, there will always be more expensive goods.
Is there anything positive in your field?
One needs to draw a positive conclusion for oneself in maintaining mental balance. And one thing is positive: what would have meant for a long time, trucks have replaced a lot. The future of that industry is great.
Vladimir Starosta (50) |
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He graduated from grammar school and finance and credit at the University of Economics in Prague. A few months after the introduction of the revolution, he and his father are appointed to the transport companies OK Trans Praha, where he is now about a quarter of the owner. He is the president of the Česmad Bohemia carrier association. In his free time, he devotes himself to his family and cultivates his own forest lands. |