Recent Trends in Transport Rate Regulation

The object of this Article is to describe the trends in the Commission’s work during the 1960’s in some of the areas of rate regulation that could not be settled by mere reference to costs, and in other areas of changing rate policy. This was a prolific period for the Commission, one that involved many rate innovations and a sense of new direction in certain aspects of rate regulation. The present discussion of the Commission’s rate work is in no sense complete; and there is no intention to make it so. By emphasizing the decisions of the recent decade, I hope to introduce the reader to the substance and trend of the more controversial aspects of today’s regulation of freight rates. There will be no discussion, of course, of matters still pending before the Commission. Nevertheless, the very substantial pending investigations of the railroad rate structure and of the railroad rate base further attest to the vitality of rate regulation today.