Nation. The record before us leads us inexorably to believe that the refusal by carriers to offer and provide transportation on shipments which, but for their order-notify aspects would be offered and provided, is essentially discriminatory and unjust. Compare Rogers & Co. v. Philadelphia & Reading Ry. Co.. 12 I.C.C. 308 (1907). Certain carriers are required by sections 20(11), 219, and 413 to issue receipts or bills of lading covering property they transport. But the alternative duties thus imposed do not authorize those carriers, at their option, to provide or refuse specific types of needed service. Those sections merely require that when transportation is in fact rendered (regardless of the nature of the service, the duty imposed to provide it, or the manner in which it may be described either commercially or within the transportation community), it be covered by the issuance of a receipt or bill of lading. Sections 1(4) and (11), 216(b), 305(a), and 404(a), on the other hand, authorize this Commission to determine the reasonableness of carriers' practices in the performance of their duties including, certainly, the issuance, form, and substance of receipts and bills of lading. We shall discuss in the next section of this report what evidence has been submitted to demonstrate that order-notify service is needed by the public. But in view of the serious impediments to commerce which would follow the partial or total abolition of that service as well as duties imposed upon common carriers by the above sections of the act to establish and observe just and reasonable practices and to provide safe, adequate, and prompt transportation upon reasonable request, we are satisfied that order-notify service is one which possesses sufficient transportation characteristics to warrant its being included within the term "transportation." The training required by carrier personnel and the time involved in their actual performance of the duties related to the service are relatively insignificant. In fact, providing such service is not materially different from rendering service on ordinary shipments and obtaining a record that the property has been delivered and the transportation completed. It is a service which is economically feasible for carriers to provide. And it constitutes a practical alternative, as several shippers point out, to the assumption by carriers of whatever risks may be attendant to c.o.d. service. We conclude, therefore, that order-notify service meets the Griffin tests for determining that a given service is transportation, and that such service should be so regarded.

As we noted above, several shippers urge that the refusal by carriers to transport shipments moving under combinations of rates

is brought about more by their asserted inability or unwillingness to settle interline accounts receivable than any specific difficulty they encounter in transporting traffic moving on that basis. Controversies between carriers as to the settlement of their interline balances are, subject to certain limitations normally matters for internal resolution by the industry. Disputes of that kind should not be foisted onto the shipping public in the form of service limitations.

It is a sound principle of transportation regulation that where there is a joint-through rate, a connecting carrier is bound by the action of an initial carrier with respect to prepayment or credit arrangements. Under such an arrangement a connecting carrier should not, by tariff provision or otherwise, refuse to accept a shipment from an initial carrier because it is prepaid. If the interest of the shipping public is given due consideration, it would seem to follow that the converse also is true, that is, that transportation should not be refused because the shipment is to be hauled on a freight-collect basis.

We are unable to find any substantive service-related distinctions between shipments transported under joint rates and those moved under combinations of rates. How rates are determined, so long as they are correct, seems to us to be totally irrevelant to the provision of the services here under consideration. There is certainly no distinction which would warrant the conclusion that the practice of handling the one and not the other is proper or constitutes the rendition of complete service if the decision to serve or not to serve turns on whether the charges there for are freight-collect or prepaid. Having said this much, we believe that it follows that service on a freight-collect basis on combination-rate shipments is properly identified as "transportation" for the same reasons we outlined above with respect to freight-collect service generally. Too often a qualified refusal to transport is an effective denial of transportation service. And such would undoubtedly be the case were we to conclude otherwise in this regard. Compare National Furniture Conf. v. Assoc. Truck, supra. Accordingly, we find that freightcollect service on shipments transported under combinations of rates constitutes "transportation" subject to regulation by this Commission.

The foregoing analysis of the nature and transportation characteristics of the services in question and the pertinent provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, as interpreted and applied by the courts and this Commission, satisfy us that all of such

services are transportation. Thus, the provision of them by regulated carriers may be required to the full extent that they are needed by the public.

SERVICE NEEDS OF THE PUBLIC

Having determined that the services described in footnote 1 constitute "transportation" and, therefore, fall within our regulatory province, we now must consider whether the evidence before us warrants a finding that those services are genuinely needed by the public and, if so, how their provision can best be required of the carriers we regulate. Those matters will be discussed in that order. In Smyth v. U.S., 293 F. Supp. 387 (D.C. Wash. 1968), it was said

that:

The Interstate Commerce Commission was created to oversee activities of common carriers in such a manner that these carriers would act for the benefit of the public which they serve, rather than their own benefit. [Emphasis added.]

In our efforts to fulfill that judicially recognized obligation, we must recognize and evaluate trends in transportation needs. We have studied the evidence here submitted by the parties and we are satisfied that such evidence portrays (a) that there has been a gradual worsening in the provision of the freight-collect and other services described in the initial footnote to this report, despite the fact that (b) the public need for such services has not subsided. The shipper participants have submitted abundant evidence of their past, current, and likely future needs for all of the freightcollect and other related services here under investigation. The number of shippers who have done so, moreover, and their geographical distribution, plainly demonstrate that those needs are representative of a wide segment of the commerce of the United States. We are entirely satisfied that a presumption of nationwide necessity for the considered service might reasonably be inferred from these facts alone. By the same token, the carriers' voluntary, long-continued provision of the involved services manifests their recognition of such need and strengthens that inference.

There appears from the tenor of this evidence not only to be a very real commercial necessity, but other and most critical public needs, for c.o.d., order-notify, and freight-collect services to be available and provided upon reasonable request. The significance commercially of the continued provision of all of these services

runs throughout the participating shippers' representations. And the important national interest in them is pointed up in the representations of several governmental bodies.

For the most part, the general composition of these needs can best be analyzed in terms of what shippers and receivers have done and can now do, but will be unable to do in the absence of the provision of such services by regulated carriers. As to freightcollect service, some of the affected or impaired commercial practices are: rating and billing with certainty of consolidated shipments for export cannot satisfactorily be accomplished; traffic will be diverted, unnecessarily and to no one's benefit, from nonprofit shippers' associations and the commercial community, and the consumers at large, will lose the benefits of lower transportation costs thereby achieved; nationwide pricing systems for many commodities will be disrupted; shippers and receivers will lose some of the freedom they need and presently enjoy in negotiating the terms of their sales and purchases; the advantages, especially the savings in time and money of computerized freight payment procedures will be sacrificed in many respects; invoicing will be delayed and same-day invoicing will often become virtually impossible; much of the current uniformity in discounting invoices. will be lost; the number of accounting transactions and the administrative cost of them will go beyond present levels; central billing procedures will need costly revision or restructuring; bill match-up time, bookkeeping practices, and checkwriting will be complicated; mailing costs will increase; en route stopoff service for additional pickups and distribution will be jeopardized; specific identification of transportation costs will be made more difficult; and billing based on the destination weights of certain commodities will be terminated.

In the light of these significant commercial changes, if not dislocations, that would thus be wrought by the elimination of the freight-collect and allied services here at issue, we believe that significant weight must be accorded the facts that these commercial practices (1) developed many years ago, and (2) until quite recently continued to be the generally accepted method of tendering millions of shipments of freight. Stated another way, the question at this stage of the instant proceeding is whether, owing to such longstanding practices, carriers may now properly refuse to transport shipments on a freight-collect or other traditional basis even though they retain the essential guarantee of payment of their charges by shippers and receivers. Everything else being equal, it

would seem that a carrier would seldom be greatly concerned over whether it is the shipper or the consignee who actually pays its charges so long as those charges are promptly and fully paid. It may be, as certain banking interests have indicated, that savings in carrier-billing costs could be achieved if all shipments were required to be prepaid. But weighing this advantage (which, as presently informed, we find to be tenuous and of dubious value) against the need to have freight-collect services available and provided in order to fulfill the basic commercial and defense purposes of our Nation, it is our informed judgment that some other method must be found to realize any such savings that might thereby result.

Chief among the statements which specifically demonstrate, in greater detail than others submitted in this proceeding (all of which are summarized in appendix B), that freight-collect service is needed and should be provided are those put in evidence by the Department of Defense (DOD), AB Volvo, Acco, Aerospace Industries, Allied Chemical, American Apparel Manufacturers Association, American Glassware Association, the Chain Store Traffic League, the Footwear Industry Traffic Council, W. T. Grant, S. S. Kresge, Lane Company, National Association of Food Chains, United States Steel Corporation, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Perhaps the clearest example, however, of the universal scope of this commercial need is set forth in the initial representation filed by the American Retail Federation. That organization, comprised as it is of 50 statewide and 28 national associations, represents approximately 800,000 individual retail establishments. Most of the contracts into which its members enter provide that consignees are to select the carriers and pay the freight charges applicable to their traffic. These needs plainly could not be met under a plan which calls for the mandatory prepayment of all freight charges.

In addition to the commercial aspects of curtailed freight-collect service, the ultimate resolution of this critical question of need also demands that we look into matters involving the national defense. Although it does not make c.o.d. shipments and is forbidden by law to prepay freight charges, DOD has expressed a most vital interest in our disposition of the issues raised on this record. In its statement, it describes the disruption caused to specialized functions involving foreign governments which was brought about by the refusals of certain motor carriers commencing in the fall of 1969 to transport export shipments on commercial

one of its