The paper is a presentation of a practical solution for the coordination of military and commercial transport with rail and water transport. The necessity for combining and coordinating transportation facilities with the idea of organizing a homogeneous transportation network of waterways, railways and highways, proved to be the essence of success in military operations during the World War. The utter inadequacy of pre-war and war-time transport facilities, when organized in the separate fields of railroad, maritime shipping and port operations, and the decentralized elements of highway transport, caused the United States Army to make a comprehensive study and plan of the world's war-time transportation with particular attention to the organization of motor transport as the necessary factor in coordinating all transportation facilities. The salient features and general principles of this study and the resultant plan are stated.
The results of this study are applied in an Army plan to coordinate the Nation's network of transportation facilities. The plan is offered by the War Department as a piece of national transportation research influenced by many factors based upon the world's greatest experience in transportation. It contemplates, finally, the establishment in the City of Washington of a National Highway Transport Board or Commission, and of a General Director of Transportation, or a General Traffic Board, to coordinate all transportation facilities.
The principal advantages claimed for this Army plan are the attainment of the full potential capacity of motor transport as a revenue-producing public-carrier service; the coordination of rail, water and highway transportation so that all three services will supplement one another, especially in terminal operations; and a general cooperative action throughout the Nation's commercial, civil and military establishments, to effect the broadest National benefits. It is a general engineering plan leading toward better social and economic conditions and a greatly strengthened national defense.
