Crosshauls

the transportation of freight in a direction opposite to the normal flow of identical or interchangeable freight. A crosshaul is one of the most common kinds of economically irrational transportation; it produces excessive movement of rolling stock, causes extra expenditures for transportation, and slows commodity circulation. Certain crosshauls are caused by faults in the arrangement of productive forces and by imperfect planning of supply, marketing, and transportation. The faults may be overt, as in the case of identical loads being transported in opposite directions along the same line (for example, coal toward coal), or covert, as in the case of identical loads being transported in opposite directions but along parallel routes via the same or different means of transportation. At times crosshauling is done in the “empty” direction under the pretext of using incidental means of transportation. Because of crosshauls the export of loads from deficit regions to surplus regions is often concealed. Crosshauls of freight of the same kind but of different quality are not economically irrational.

Crosshauls can be controlled by the proper planning of interraion (interoblast) exchange and by establishing schemes for the normal (optimum) flows of each load (the schemes are mandatory for the transportation organizations, as well as for expediters and recipients), as well as by a more economically rational zoning of production and freight transportation.