essay on modes of transport

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Essay on Transport in 500 Words

Updated on
Jan 2, 2024

Essay on Transport: There are four transport modes: air, water, land and rail. Railways and roads are the most commonly used modes of transport. The Grand Trunk Road or the GT Road is one of the world’s oldest roads and the largest in Asia. Since the domestication of animals in the Mesolithic period, humans started to work on different types of transport mechanisms. Developments in transport systems have come a long way. Today, aeroplanes and jets are the fastest modes of transport. Humans have built jets. Some of the fastest planes and jets are the USAF X-15, SR-71 Blackbird, and MIG-25 Foxbat.

Also Read: Speech on Make Public Transport Free

Shiva Tyagi

With an experience of over a year, I've developed a passion for writing blogs on wide range of topics. I am mostly inspired from topics related to social and environmental fields, where you come up with a positive outcome.

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Essay on Importance of Transportation (900 Words)

February 18, 2018 by Study Mentor 2 Comments

Transport or transportation is the means for movement of humans, animals, goods, etc. for one place to another for some purpose.

It is transportation that enables communication, trade, exchange, etc. between societies and localities and therefore, it is extremely important for the development of it.

Transportation contributes to the development of economic, social, political and cultural fields of a civilization and leads to the betterment of their conditions.

The revolutions that happened throughout history, such as the Industrial Revolution, or the Russian Revolutions, etc. would have been incomplete and ineffective without good means of transportation’s.

It may also be said that having better and more effective means and lines of transportation than other countries, makes a country more powerful or prosperous. Thus, it becomes a criterion to assess the development of a country.

Table of Contents

Functions of transportation

There are various functions of transportation, because of which it is important. These are:

Physical Supply of Products

Transportation becomes a means to carry necessary raw materials from raw material providers to factories where it is used to for production of goods.

From there, these products are carried to wholesalers and then markets, when it finally reaches in the hands of consumers.

In this process, it is transportation that plays the primary role. Without it, this process of supply of product to the market would not have been possible.

In fact, transport is such a key of marketing, which helps in carrying goods to the scattered consumers in different places, narrows the gap between producers and consumers and facilitates to distribute goods to the consumers at minimum cost and time.

Specialization: Transportation leads to specialization or division of labor. It leads to commercial prosperity of those involved in it, and proved an alternative opportunity for employment for those looking for it.

Stabilization in Price

Transportation helps to bring stability in prices of different commodities. It helps in relocation of goods from more supplied places to scarcely supplied areas.

This results in coherence between demand and supply, and thus brings stability in prices of the commodities. Transportation also encourages healthy competition amongst suppliers, which results in the ultimate development of the society and community.

Modes of transportation

There are various modes of transportation that are employed in its process. These are:

Land Transport System

Land transport is the oldest and most practiced system. The means, which are used to carry people and goods through land transport are called land transportation.

Land transportation is divided in two modes as road transport and railway transport. Road transport has been used since ancient time and it is very useful and important.

The means of road transport are: a). men and labors, b). animals such as mule, horse, sheep, goat, camel etc. c). cart, lorry etc. d). the modern automobile such as motor, bus, truck, tractor, tempo, trolley bus, jeep etc. are also used to transport people and goods.

People, cloths, paper materials, books, machines and machinery, animals, fresh fruits and other goods are transported from one place to another.

On the other hand, railways are used to transport goods and people from one place to another much faster and more efficiently than by road.

Development of railway transport helps much to develop industry, commerce and whole economy of any country.

It is very useful in transporting big and heavy goods and materials such as big machines, coal, food grain, chemicals, automobiles, iron, steel etc.

Water Transport System

Water transport is as an ancient means of transport, it was developed and used to transport goods and people from one country to another before the development of air transport.

It is also operated to transport goods from one part to another of any country through big canals, rivers or sea.

Water transport is a system of transporting goods and people from one place to another by ship, boat, steamer, motorboat etc. through canals, rivers, lake, sea, ocean etc.

Air Transport System

Air transport is a much more modern and faster means of transport. The importance of air transport has gradually growing.

This is the fastest speed means for transporting passengers and goods to different parts within a country and different countries of the world.

Pipeline Transport System

Pipeline is another important means of transport. Raw oil, Petroleum products, processed coal, drinking water, natural gas etc. are transported from one place to another place.

Pipeline transport may be constructed underground or underwater.

Rope-way Transport System

Rope-way is another means of transport. It can transport people and goods. It can be operated in the places where road construction is impractical and costly.

Certain limit of goods or people can be transported with the help of electricity. In the hilly remote countries, rope-way transport system may be suitable means.

Thus, the means of efficient transportation are an indispensable component of modern civilization. The economic development of a country depends largely on an efficient and adequate system of transport.

They form a very important way of gaining instrumental wealth.

No country in the world today can build up its prosperity unless it has a highly developed system of communication and transport. Development of an efficient transport system is a pre-condition of our economic development.

Transportation and Communication have an important bearing on the development of exchange and markets.

It results in increase land values, breaking of economic circles, and thus tend to equalize prices, making labor more mobile, enabling a greater division of labor among different industries and countries, determining the geographical distribution of industries, playing a very important part in relieving distress in the famine-stricken areas by rapid distribution of food-stuffs, resulting in the effectiveness of administration and national defense are inseparably connected with the advancement of transport system.

Thus, importance of transport cannot be denied. Therefore, it is the need of modern times to enhance, innovate, develop and make effective the modes of transportation mentioned above.

Reader Interactions

March 14, 2021 at 7:01 am

Other things are good but its too hard to understand.

February 1, 2022 at 5:13 pm

great writeup. .i have a view to adding up here. transport is one of the most lucrative businesses for any country and for people of that country as well. But looking at the future of automatic cars I believe transportation will going to see a massive change in their way of working. many drivers will get unemployed due to driveless trucks and would help decrease accidents as well on top of the cake.

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Student Essays

5 Essays on Transportation [ Types & Importance in Life ]

Transportation is an important part of our lives. They facilitate our daily journeys, travel, tours etc, from one place to another. This Essay I have written for students that talks about the transportation, importance & types of transportation in life. This essay is very helpful for children and students for their school exams and written tests.

Essay on Transportation | Importance of Transportation in our Life

Transportation is an important part of our lives. It helps us get from one place to another. There are many different types of transportation, such as cars, buses, trains, planes, and boats. Each type of transportation has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Transportation refers at the process of transferring people or goods from one place to another. It is an important aspect of both our economic and social lives, facilitating the movement of goods and people between locations.

>>>> Read Also : ” Essay on My Travel Experience “

Types of Transportation:

There are many different types of transportation. Some of the most common are:

Cars: Cars are the most popular type of transportation in the United States. They are fast and can go anywhere. However, they are expensive to buy and to operate.

Buses: Buses are cheaper than cars, but they are not as fast. They also have to stop at bus stations, which can be inconvenient.

Trains: Trains are faster than buses and can go to more places, but they are also more expensive.

Planes: Planes are the fastest type of transportation, but they are also the most expensive.

Boats: Boats are a popular way to travel in the United States and around the world. They are slower than planes and cars, but they are cheaper than both.

Importance of Transportation in our Life:

Transportation is important because it helps us get from one place to another. It is also important for economic development. Transportation helps businesses move goods and services around the country and the world. It also helps people travel for work or pleasure.

Transportation is also important for safety. When people can get to hospitals, police stations, and fire stations quickly, it can save lives.

>>> Related Post: ” Essay on Effects of Global Warming ”

Short Essay on Transportation:

Transportation is the movement of people, goods and animals from one place to another. It has always been an important aspect of human civilization, enabling trade and communication between different regions.

The earliest forms of transportation were walking, swimming and riding animals. However, with advancements in technology, various modes of transportation have emerged such as roadways, railways, airways and waterways. Each of these modes has its own unique characteristics and benefits, catering to different needs and requirements.

Roadways are the most common form of transportation, with a vast network of interconnected roads allowing people and goods to travel within cities, towns and across countries. They provide flexibility and convenience for short distances, but can also lead to traffic congestion and pollution.

On the other hand, railways are a more efficient mode of transportation for long distances, carrying heavy loads of goods and people at high speeds. They also have a lower carbon footprint compared to roadways.

Airways have revolutionized transportation with the ability to travel long distances in short periods of time. However, they also contribute significantly to air pollution and climate change.

Waterways are another crucial form of transportation, especially for transporting goods across large bodies of water. They are also a popular mode of travel for tourists and provide a scenic and relaxing experience.

In conclusion, transportation plays a vital role in our daily lives and the economy. It has greatly evolved over time, making the world more connected and accessible. However, it is important to consider its impact on the environment and work towards sustainable solutions for the future. Transportation will continue to shape our society and it is important to adapt to its advancements while also being mindful of its consequences .

Essay on Transportation in India:

Transportation is an essential aspect of any country’s development and progress. In a vast and diverse country like India, having a robust transportation system is crucial for connecting people, goods, and services across the nation.

India has made significant strides in its transportation infrastructure over the years. The Indian Railways, with its extensive network of trains running on more than 121,000 kilometers of track, is the lifeline of the country. It carries millions of passengers and tons of freight every day and plays a vital role in the economy.

Apart from railways, India also has an extensive road network covering over 5 million kilometers. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is responsible for constructing and maintaining highways connecting major cities and towns. This well-connected road network has facilitated the growth of trade and commerce, making it easier for businesses to transport goods across the country.

In recent years, India has also seen significant progress in air transportation. With the privatization of airlines and the modernization of airports, flying has become more affordable and accessible to a wider population. The improvement in air connectivity has not only made traveling within the country more convenient but has also boosted tourism and foreign investments.

In conclusion, transportation in India has come a long way, and its continued development is crucial for the country’s growth. With technological advancements and increased investment in infrastructure, India’s transportation system is only expected to get better, making it easier for people and goods to travel across the nation.

Essay on Transportation and Communication:

Transportation and communication have always been essential aspects of human civilization. They are crucial for the growth and development of any society, allowing people to exchange ideas, goods, services, and knowledge. In this short essay, we will explore the history of transportation and communication and how they have developed over time.

The earliest form of transportation was walking or using animals as a means to move from one place to another. As time passed, humans began using boats and ships for transportation over water bodies. The development of the wheel and cart revolutionized land transportation, enabling people to transport goods and travel longer distances.

With the invention of steam engines in the 19th century, railways became a popular mode of transportation. Later on, automobiles were introduced, changing the face of transportation forever. Today, we have a wide range of transportation options such as airplanes, high-speed trains, and even space shuttles.

Similarly, communication has undergone significant changes throughout history. In ancient times, people used smoke signals and drums to send messages over long distances. With the invention of writing systems came letter writing and the development of postal services. The telegraph, telephone, and radio were game-changing inventions that made communication faster and more efficient.

In recent years, the internet has revolutionized communication by providing instant messaging and video calling services. The rise of social media platforms has also changed the way we interact and communicate with each other.

Transportation and communication have not only connected people but also played a crucial role in shaping cultures, economies, and societies. They continue to evolve and improve, making the world a smaller and more connected place. So let us appreciate the advancements in transportation and communication that have made our lives easier and more efficient. After all, these are the pillars of human progress.

Essay on Transportation Problems:

Transportation is an essential component of our daily lives. It enables us to move from one place to another, delivering goods and services, and connecting people across the world. However, transportation also brings forth various challenges that continue to pose significant problems for society.

One of the most pressing transportation problems is traffic congestion. With the increasing number of vehicles on the roads and limited infrastructure, traffic congestion has become a common phenomenon in cities worldwide. This results in wasted time, increased air pollution, and reduced productivity for individuals and businesses.

Another transportation issue that affects our lives is the high cost of transportation. The rising fuel prices and maintenance costs make it difficult for people to afford their daily commute. This becomes even more challenging for low-income individuals who rely on public transportation.

Moreover, the reliance on non-renewable sources of energy for transportation has contributed to environmental issues such as air pollution and climate change. The emissions from vehicles are major contributors to greenhouse gases, which have a detrimental impact on our planet.

In addition, there is also the problem of accessibility in transportation. Many communities, particularly in rural areas, lack proper infrastructure and public transportation options, making it challenging for individuals to access basic necessities such as healthcare and education.

Transportation problems also have a significant impact on the economy. The inefficiencies in transportation systems can lead to delays in the delivery of goods and services, resulting in increased costs and lost opportunities for businesses.

Q: What is transportation in essay?

A: In an essay, transportation refers to the movement of people, goods, or information from one place to another, exploring its various modes, significance, and impacts.

Q: What is the importance of transportation in your life?

A: Transportation is crucial as it enables mobility, access to resources, economic activities, and connection with others, making it an integral part of daily life.

Q: What should I write about transportation?

A: You can write about the different modes of transportation, their role in society and the economy, challenges in transportation systems, and the impact of transportation on the environment.

Q: What is a transportation paragraph?

A: A transportation paragraph discusses various aspects of transportation, such as modes (e.g., road, rail, air, sea), their importance, and how they influence people’s lives and the movement of goods and services

151 Transportation Essay Topics & Writing Tips

Have you ever thought about the importance of transportation? Every day we see cars, trucks, planes, and ships and never wonder what exactly they are doing. In fact, these vehicles not only transport people from one place to another. They also form a vast system that plays a vital role in any country.

This is what transportation essays are devoted to. This article by Custom-Writing.org team will help you with writing your paper. Here, you will find:

a list of 151 excellent topics;
a step-by-step writing guide;
a public transportation essay sample.
🔄 Before You Start
✈️ Transportation Topics
✍️ Outline & Guide
📑 Essay Sample

🔗 References

🔄 essays on transportation: before you start.

First of all, we want to explain the two essential things you should consider before writing an essay. These are narrowing down the scope and planning .

STEP#1: Narrow down the scope.

Needless to say, transportation is a field that offers hundreds of issues to consider. You can start by determining what aspects of transportation interest you the most and using them as a starting point for your essay.

STEP#2: Plan your paper.

After you’ve collected plenty of material for the essay, the next step is to think what specific points you want to highlight and what particular sources will be necessary. An effective way to do it is to make note cards while researching your topic:

On every note card, write down the point that you want to include in your paper.
Look through your cards and choose ideas that will finally make up your transportation essay.

✈️ Transportation Essay Topics

Now you’re ready to choose a perfect topic. Below you’ll find various exciting ideas that you’ll enjoy writing about.

Transportation Essay Topics: Top 10

Public transport in rural areas.
Road transport’s economy.
The future of public transport.
How to start a car
Gender inequality in driving
Family cars: pros and cons
American vs. British driving
Peculiarities of building bridges
My first driving experience
Preventing road accidents.

Topics for an Essay on Transportation in the Past and Present

Transport plays an integral part in human history . Its development facilitated the expansion of territories and allowed different nations to collaborate. Explore these fascinating transportation topics in your essay:

Importance of mobility: then and now. The role of transport has changed dramatically over time. Are you interested in studying differences in vehicle use between the past and present? This topic is for you.
Transportation modes before and after the Industrial Revolution . Choose several vehicles from the past. Then, compare them to some modern ones. Which of the old transportation modes have survived to this day?
Animal-powered transport: past to present. With this topic, consider the earliest methods of transit. You can focus on horses, camels, or llamas. It’s also interesting to look into the current use of animals for transportation.
How did transport influence expansion? Assess the role of vehicles during the Age of Exploration. How did they facilitate competition between countries?
National Road: connecting the US through the first highway. The National Road was vital for America’s expansion. Write about its past and present impact in your essay.
From the Appian Way to the Silk Road. Compare these two historic roads. Which of their features caused trade to boost? Can we trace present-day trade globalization to them?
Interstate Highway System and its legacy. The Interstate Highway System is a perfect transportation topic. Your essay might address its role in the US transit development. How does it connect America’s past with its present?
Challenges of transport in the past and present. Comparing past issues to the present ones can provide you with a perspective. This topic requires thorough historical analysis. For instance, you may focus on infrastructure development vs. environmental concerns.
From horse-drawn carriages to gasoline cars. The invention of the first automobiles is an exciting essay idea. Describe the significance of this innovation. How did it influence people’s lives?
Air travel: a revolution in the transportation industry. This exciting topic will take you on a journey through history. Describe the invention of a plane starting with the earliest attempts. What makes it a crucial step in global development?
Transport in the military. Vehicles help to accomplish critical tasks in the army. In your essay, explore inventions introduced during wartime. For example, you may examine the role of zeppelins and U-boats in WWI or bombers in WWII .
Transit for indigenous cultures in the past and present. Examine several tribes in your transportation essay. Various aboriginal cultures have unique approaches to transit. What factors influenced their emergence?

Topics for an Essay on Transportation Systems

Transportation systems are various means of carrying goods or people. These include air, water, and land transport. All of their components are interconnected, with each one serving a unique role.

Intelligent Transportation Systems: how AI transforms the industry. Explore the latest innovative ideas with this topic. Will AI systems define the future of supply chain management?
Transport systems and sustainability: working toward a better future. It’s not easy to maintain an environmentally friendly approach in the transportation industry. Your essay can explore several recent solutions.
Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs): what are the prospects? CAVs are a recent yet promising development. Will they be the next milestone in public mobility?
Control of hazardous materials: key concerns. Environmental hazards are often mentioned in conjunction with public transport issues. This concern harkens back to the problem of sustainability. Further research on this topic can help improve road management.
Video detection: opportunities for flexible data capture. This future-oriented essay will be fascinating to write. For example, you can research the options that digital video detection tools offer.
AI-based traffic control frameworks. Traffic control is a crucial factor in road management. What innovative tools were introduced in recent years? Review them in your paper.
Deep learning in transportation systems. Technological updates are essential for preventing accidents. What opportunities does deep learning offer in this regard?
Complex system software for improving the road management system. You can focus your essay on IT tools. What type of software is required to navigate a modern transportation framework? Review its various opportunities.
Construction and structural design of road systems. Road designs change to reflect our current needs. Today it’s essential to make them safe and sustainable. Look into the industry trends and outline them in your paper.
Integration of manufacturing systems. Lean production is an exciting idea to explore. How can manufacturing systems help in improving the transportation sector?
Manufacturing, modeling, and simulation. Explore modeling and simulation as tools for creating safer vehicles. Can they increase the efficacy of current transportation systems?

Ideas for an Essay on Transportation and Communication

Communication is intrinsically connected with transportation. From the dawn of humanity, people exchanged goods and information by traveling. Throughout the ages, the speed of these exchanges increased. Today, our opportunities regarding communication are practically endless. Enjoy researching them in your essay!

Ways of increasing market size using transportation and communication. For this paper, analyze the changes in the target market attributes. What influences market size?
Role of communication in informing the public about disasters. Discuss disaster preparedness and information management.
How do transport and communication improve travel accessibility? Assess the extent of this change. What are its economic implications?
Investments in infrastructure development. Analyze the current model of managing transport-related financial concerns. Does focusing on socioeconomic factors make it effective?
Policymaking as an issue in transportation and communication. Analyze the implications of policymaking on economic development. Will development rates increase if we reconsider the existing policies?
Updating policies for cargo storage handling. In your essay, review the issues of cargo management. How can we make it better?
Investing in transportation and communication. Point out the connections between investment and the socioeconomic environment.

The picture enumerates the main components of transportation.

Spatial problems in building a transport system network. Spatial problems cause multiple infrastructure issues. Study them and expose the issues in building of transportation and communication channels.
Economic issues in transport management: key outcomes. Your essay could also delve into the financial problems of transit. Transport should be linked in a working system. Otherwise, you can expect dire consequences for its management.
Ways of increasing reliability of data management. Information management directly affects the realm of transport. The reliability of the data determines its effectiveness. How can we improve it?
Building a global transportation and communication system. With this topic, you can review critical global transport trends. Explore advantages and drawbacks of the innovation. Pay attention to the development of a worldwide framework.
Transportation and communication: gateway to economic development. Economic changes will lead to improved communication within transport systems. As a result, it will become more efficient. Encourage this improvement by writing an essay about it.

Benefits of Public Transportation: Essay Topics

Nowadays, public transportation is losing its popularity. More and more people prefer buying a car instead. However, buses and subways still have numerous benefits. Explore them with this list of essay topics:

What are the three main benefits of urban public transport? Talk about how public transportation improves life in the cities. Mention how subways are faster than any type of private urban transport.
How does public transit benefit the environment? Discuss how it helps to keep the air clean by reducing CO2 emissions.
Private transport is not as safe as public transit. Talk about how safe public transport is. Unlike traveling by car, it has fewer accidents, traffic casualties, and deaths.
In what ways does mass transit reduce health issues? Here you can mention how the use of subways increases physical activity.
Public transportation gives people more free time. For instance, it allows passengers to read, study, or work instead of watching the road. It can also reduce the commute time.
Why is public transit perfect for tourists? Discuss how it helps tourists to learn more about the places they travel to.
Public transportation contributes to the country’s economy. For example, it creates job opportunities such as drivers and dispatchers.
Mass transit is the best way to travel. You can interview people who prefer to use public transport. Mention how it helps them to save money and time.
How does public transportation help to reduce air pollution? For instance, you can mention that using it leads to fewer car emissions.
The importance of efficient public transportation. Explain how the development of mass transit helps to improve people’s lives. For example, it allows them to commute to work and travel between cities and countries.
Public transit helps to reduce traffic congestion in the big cities. You can assess the role of an efficient transport system with timetables.
How does technology change public transportation? Talk about technological development that helps to improve the mass transit system, making it more convenient.
What makes up an efficient public transport system? Mention various means of transport, as well as good routes and timetables.
Reasons why you should use public transportation. You can discuss its safety, convenience, and other benefits.
The popularity of mass transit in the modern world. Talk about how it allows people to travel to work and visit other cities or countries.

Essay on Air Transportation: Topics & Ideas

The invention of air transport was one of the greatest milestones in human history. It allowed us to travel faster and safer than ever before. Are you interested in aircraft and its various uses? Check out these examples of air transportation essay topics:

The effect of air transportation on tourism. Mention that the developments of air services have shaped tourism in many countries.
The main benefits of air transportation. For example, talk about how it allows people to travel far distances in a relatively short amount of time.
Aviation and its adverse effects on the environment. Discuss how aircraft use contributes to air, noise, water, and soil pollution. and soil pollution.
Economic development and aviation. Discuss how air transportation contributed to the global economy. For instance, you can mention the development of tourism.
Traveling by plane is safer than road transportation. Here you can mention that despite many flights dispatched each day worldwide, the reports of crashes are very rare. On roads, however, no day goes by without a report of a motor accident.
What are the reasons for the rise of air transportation? Explain why it became popular. For example, you can talk about how air travel became more accessible for people.
Why is air transportation more efficient than high-speed rail? Mention how a plane can get you anywhere, as it doesn’t need roads.
Aviation and its accessibility. For example, you can mention the prices of the tickets and the number of airports in different countries.
Main reasons why air transportation is safe. Talk about the high-security standards in airports. Give some statistics that show how rarely accidents occur. You can also mention how airplanes and helicopters are equipped for emergencies.
Air transportation and globalization. Talk about how aviation contributed to globalization, allowing people to travel and transport goods over significant distances.
What is the importance of air transportation? Discuss the benefits of air transportation and how it helps to improve people’s lives.
Pros and cons of air transport. The development of air transportation helped to improve communication between the countries. On the downside, it has a serious environmental impact.
Does air transportation have any environmental benefits? Discuss whether aviation affects nature only in a negative way. You can talk about the technological improvements that help modern airplanes to emit less carbon monoxide.
The political importance of air transportation. Here you can talk about how the development of air transportation improved communication between nations. You can also mention how aircraft can be used as a weapon.
Ways to improve air transportation. Talk about technological development that can make traveling by plane more environmentally friendly.

Extra Transportation Topics

Still haven’t found a suitable topic? Well, here are 76 more transportation essay ideas:

The importance of transportation for a country’s economy. Review the main effects of urban transport on different aspects of the economy and assess its significance.
The public transport system. Research the sphere of different transport modes and determine how they’re connected.
Transportation in times of the Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution has influenced today’s transport economy in many ways. The transport organization of that period is an interesting topic to research.
Urban transport improvement in developing countries. Focus the research on finding ways to solve transport problems. You may also propose a new transport policy.
Adjustments for transport fares in a city of your choice. The essay may identify issues in the transport economy and suggests measures for its improvement.
Raising funds for transport improvement. With this topic, you can focus on different fundraising strategies, such as public campaigns. With this topic, you can focus on different fundraising strategies, such as public campaigns.
Types of government interventions in air transport organization. The essay may review existing governmental instruments for improving air transportation in a region.
Balancing supply and demand in rural transport economy. You can explore this important topic by identifying issues in rural transport and reviewing strategies for matching supply and demand.
Application of economic theory to urban transport. For this essay, study various economic theories and see which of them can be applied to different modes of transport.
Effective transport systems in various countries. One option is to study several examples of public transport in India and South Africa.
Development of water transport. This essay can explore how different modes of water transport could improve a city’s connectivity.
Recent economic trends in rural transport
How to choose transport for people with mental disorders
Current healthcare-related transport issues in the United States
A dilemma of animal-powered transport and animal rights
The idea of transportation from the Amish point of view
Travel by train or by plane: the importance of psychological factors
Story of the first car made by Francois Isaac de Rivaz
Public  transportation in the USA : the 1990s vs. the 2000s
Rail transport: 5 issues to worry about in the 21st century
Peculiarities of shooting films on trains:  Murder on the Orient Express
Importance of communication during travel by plane
Threats of cruise ships: Titanic’s story
Passenger 57  vs.  Speed : movies about transportation challenges
The Fast and the Furious : a wave of popularity for car movies
Is it acceptable to text while driving?
Toll roads in the USA: an important inequality issue
Pixar’s Cars : what does it teach us about transport?
Advertisement banners in the subway: a powerful marketing tool or a peril?
School bus transportation in Europe and the United States
What emotional problems do students face when they use school buses?
Bike lanes in parks: the question of safety
Cycling infrastructure: threats and benefits for drivers
Who is responsible for safety in aviation?
Transport that kills: the case of 9/11
Riding a motorcycle: benefits and possible risks
Special free training programs to support motorcycle safety
Public helipads in the city: equipment that matters
Traffic congestion in the United States: causes and solutions
Impact of traffic jams on human health and employment
Overpopulation or lack of roads: what toughens traffic congestion?
Safety of cable transport: how to behave in elevators
Reasons to visit the Moon: spaceflight access for Americans
Gas pipelines: a safe means of transportation or a reason for concern?
Benefits of ferry transport: a place for contemplation
Water bike free access: the necessity of a license
Illegal behavior of drivers : lessons to learn
What are the most common driving distractions?
Traffic jams and their impact on human behavior
Electric transportation technologies of the 21st century
Hygiene in public transport: subway threats for Americans
Driving accidents: the roles of drivers, passengers, and pedestrians
Transportation lessons from movies: Gone in 60 Seconds
Types of conflicts between motorcyclists and car drivers
Availability of transport for low-income families in the United States
Why do people need vehicles in their lives?
What would happen if all modern transport disappeared?
Pros and cons of transportation progress in society
Competition between different transportation systems
Differences between airline flight classes: are they equally safe?
Child car seat: a new law and new power
The popularity of monorail tracks in different parts of the world
Do people actually like using transport or do they just have to do it?
The effects of drunk driving on road traffic death rates.
Gas prices and human needs: solutions for drivers
What can your car tell about you?
Environmental concerns in car driving discussions : dilemma without a solution
Public and private transportation: how to make the right choice
You can live without a car, but do you want it?
Transportation in healthcare: goals, techniques, and outcomes
Emotions while driving: the importance of control and expert help
Radio, phone calls, and communication: threats for drivers
Plane and train traveling: history and current situation
Water transportation characteristics and techniques: sea vs. river
Space for people: what should you know about spaceflights?
A variety of transport in the  James Bond  franchise

If you haven’t found what you’re looking for, feel free to use our topic generator !

✍️ Transportation Essay Outline & Writing Guide

Now that you’ve chosen a perfect transportation topic, you’re ready to learn how to plan your essay. Similar to any other type of academic writing, a transportation essay consists of three main parts:

The picture shows a transportation essay template.

Now, let’s see how to write each essay part.

Transportation Essay Introduction

An introduction is the first part of the essay. Its goal is to let the reader know what they can expect from this work. Try to make your introduction as brief and straightforward as possible.

Since the introductory paragraph starts the paper, it has to draw the reader’s attention. The most effective way to achieve it is by using a hook . A question, an interesting fact, or statistics can work as a hook:

Why is public transportation important?

Did you know that in 2019 Americans took around 9.9 billion trips using public transportation?

After you’re done with the hook, do the following:

State what your paper is about. The reader needs to know the essay’s main topic and why it is important.
Provide some background information. It will help you to establish the issue.
Finally, build a strong thesis statement. Want to know how? Read the following section.

What Is the Strongest Thesis for an Essay on Public Transportation?

A thesis statement is a sentence that contains an answer to your paper’s central question. It helps you organize and develop your arguments and ideas. It also makes it easier for the reader to follow your logic.

To generate a good thesis statement, think of a question you will answer in your essay. For instance, let’s say your topic is “Explain how using public transportation can benefit people’s health.” With a topic like this, you may choose a question such as “What are the health benefits of using public transport?”

After you have a question, you can think of some answers to it. For instance:

The possible health benefits of using public transportation are that it helps to be more active, reduces stress, and keeps the air cleaner.
Using public transportation can help people stay more active, avoid stress, and keep the air cleaner.

Keep in mind that a thesis statement shouldn’t be too general. Try to narrow down the topics so that it becomes more specific. Take a look at the following thesis examples:

	Thesis example	Comments
❌	Public transportation has many benefits.	This sentence is too general. It also does not provide any information on how or why public transportation use is beneficial.
✔️	Public transportation enables economic growth and helps make citizens’ lives more convenient.	This sentence directly demonstrates the benefits of public transport. It also narrows them down to 2 major aspects: economy and convenience.

Transportation Essay: Main Body

In the essay’s body, you prove your thesis and support it with examples. If you have a simple thesis, you probably won’t need many body paragraphs to explain your ideas. Usually, 2 or 3 are enough.

Each of the main body paragraphs should contain:

Main idea	The main idea is what a paragraph is focused on. It’s stated in a topic sentence. The main ideas can be argued, and that’s why you need to prove them.
Evidence to support the idea	Evidence helps you make a point. It also convinces the reader that the information you introduce is accurate. Statistics, facts, quotations, and findings from your research are all considered evidence.
Idea discussion and analysis	In this part of a paragraph, you give examples and explain the evidence. Make sure to connect it with the paragraph’s main idea.
Transitions	Transitional words help you to move from one paragraph to the next one smoothly. They appear at the beginning of a topic sentence. It’s better to start rather than end a paragraph with a transitional phrase. Here are some examples:

Transportation Essay Conclusion

In a conclusion, you go back to the main focus of your essay. When writing a concluding paragraph, make sure to:

Rephrase the thesis statement. Remind the reader of your main argument using the information you have discussed in the body paragraphs.
Summarize the points you’ve made. It’s better to avoid mentioning new information in your conclusion. Briefly summarize the points you’ve made and explain how they support your ideas.
Talk about the argument’s significance. Demonstrate why the discussion on this topic is important. For instance, you may demonstrate how your argument helps shed light on a neglected issue. You can also suggest what the reader can do with the information they’ve learned.

📑 Public Transportation Essay Sample

Looking for an example a transportation essay? Look no further! Below, you will find an excellent essay example. Check it out:

Title: Transportation Challenges of the Present
Introduction	Transport infrastructure is multifaceted and complicated. Millions of tons of oil, fuel, and gasoline are used every day to transport people and haul goods worldwide. Such a complex system leads to challenges, such as dependence on transport on personal and public levels, traffic noise, and pollution.
1st body paragraph	Nowadays, people are constantly using different types of transport, which forms a kind of dependence. As the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed, if the transportation system suddenly freezes, it would lead to a collapse. As most of the public transport stopped, thousands of people were stuck abroad, and big transport companies faced millions in damages. The future of air transportation was also threatened, as many airlines requested bailouts. Thereby, an unforeseen circumstance has shown how transport paralysis negatively affected humanity.
2nd body paragraph	Ships are a means of transport that also come with serious challenges. They can seriously harm the environment, especially when it comes to accidents involving large liners carrying oil. The consequences of accidents in which tons of oil are thrown into the seas and oceans are dire. Diesel exhaust fumes are harmful to the environment, not to mention soot emissions, incomplete fuel combustion, and noise pollution. Considering the threat of global warming, managing these problems became a serious challenge.
Conclusion	To sum up, people are not only too dependent on the transportation system, but they also harm the environment. Recent events have shown that having a global transportation system has numerous downsides which need to be dealt with.

We hope that this article helped you write your essay. Tell us in the comments which transportation topic you’ve chosen. Don’t forget to check our free tips on other essay types!

Transportation in the past and present essay 16 models

English essay
January 31, 2018

Transportation in the past and present essay, through which we learn a lot of information about the means of transportation and how it evolved from horse-drawn vehicles until we reached the latest types of transport. All this will be learned here in Transportation in the past and present essay.

Transportation in the past and present essay

Transportation is one of the most important things that every day has a tremendous development. Here we will know how transportation developed and how it was in the past and how it has become in the present. All of this we will know here through Transportation in the past and present essay.

Transportation

Transport and communication are considered the cornerstones of many human civilizations because of their importance in linking neighboring cities and villages to each other.

Therefore, man has been seeking innovation and discovery for thousands of years to develop and improve these means.

Without transportation there is no Interconnection and communication between people. In this paragraph we will talk about transportation in the past and present.

Transportation in the past

The development of transport during the stages of history was very slow and difficult, as people were carrying their goods on their heads or on their backs or run on the ground.

In about 5000 BC, people began to use animals to transport loads and goods like mules and donkeys. After 3000 BC, the vehicles were invented. They were made up of four wheels without a motor.

Boats were also invented, and humans began using animals, vehicles and boats to carry loads to many places faster and easier than before.

In the late 18th century inventors produced the first vehicles, and then the inventions in the means of transport until the fifteenth century AD, Where improvements have been made in the construction of large vessels; to make long journeys possible across the various seas and oceans.

In the 18th century steam engines were invented, leading to the emergence of steam-powered vehicles and trains. In the late 19th century, oil and natural gas were discovered and harnessed to serve and develop various means of transport by building vessels and vehicles powered by gas and oil engines.

Transportation in the present

Today’s transportation has seen a significant leap forward, transforming the world into a small village, These include:

Cars: The development of the world of cars has been a great speed, we are now witnessing many different shapes, types and designs of them, and the car companies are more competitive; to manufacture the latest cars and the fastest and most comfortable and safe.

Trains: trains are one of the most modern means of transport, through which thousands of people are transported through long distances and vast inside or outside their countries, and through which we transfer many different materials and goods, and at a lower price compared to other means.

Buses and trucks: Buses are one of the most important modes of mass transport, transporting many people to and from their workplaces. Buses are used as a public transport. It is cheap and saves time and effort to move around.

How transportation has changed from past to present

When I wonder about how transportation has changed from the past to the present, I find there is a very wide difference in speed and comfort.

I find that the speed is relative to the person and the extent of his interest in arriving early. Because I see that there is always a lesson that we learn when we travel long distances and time does not go in vain. But there are always interesting events happening around us.

As for convenience, I can say that it has become very different between the past and the present. The old means of transportation were more difficult to move or rest periods in places that were not qualified for that.

Therefore, I find that the current amenities, such as comfortable chairs designed to suit your sitting for a long time, using the best and finest fabrics and materials, is very wonderful. Amenities vary according to the means of transportation, whether it is a plane, train, car, or steamer.

There is a vast difference that helps you spend a safe and comfortable travel. Therefore, it is great that we are living in this present time and enjoy all these convenient means of transportation.

Transportation in the past

In the past, transportation depended on a lot of hard work. Whether to prepare for it since a great time earlier. Preparing many items of food and clothing. And provide plenty of money so that a person can move. This is because of the distances and the presence of large areas that are not qualified for the population, which makes moving from one area to another difficult and fraught with many natural and abnormal risks.

One of the most famous ancient means of transportation was the horse or carts that were drawn by horses. Come later after that car or train.

And certainly cars were not made to carry heavy weights or travel long distances. Also, the roads were not qualified in all countries for movement.

Which makes us feel grateful that we live in a time of more development in the means of transportation and also more grateful for the rehabilitation of all countries of the appropriate infrastructure to facilitate transportation.

Paragraph about transportation

There is no doubt that the means of transportation are of great importance in the growth of the economy of countries.

Man has known the importance of transportation since ancient times and used it to move from one place to another, in addition to using it to transport products and merchandise to the markets.

Transportation has witnessed a great development, as it has become more comfortable and faster than before, and has used clean fuels such as gas and electricity to maintain a clean environment and reduce diseases that were spread due to air pollution with car exhaust.

Car exhaust was causing chest and respiratory diseases as a result of emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide. In addition, car exhaust contains high levels of lead, which is very harmful to health.

Transportation in the past and present

Undoubtedly, the history of transportation development indicates the extent of technological development that occurred during the past few decades. A series of successive inventions have occurred that revolutionized the world of transportation.

Example of transportation in the past

About fifty years ago, my grandfather and my father used the steam train to travel, and its speed was slow as it covered a distance of 100 kilometers in several hours, and the seats were made of wood and uncomfortable, and this train was very noisy as it went, in addition to the smoke coming from it which pollutes the air

An example of transportation in the present

Today, we ride an electric express train, it runs 100 km in several minutes, and its seats are leather, which is very comfortable, and it does not pollute the environment because it uses clean energy, and it does not make noise while it is running.

Compare transportation in the past and present

Undoubtedly, we saw in the old films some of the means of transportation that our ancestors used, and we noticed the great difference between them and modern transportation.

The benefits of technological development in transportation

The technological development in the means of transportation has provided several benefits that have brought all countries economic progress and growth, such as:

Increasing the speed of transportation, which saved a lot of time, in addition to encouraging many people to travel and move from one place to another.
Transportation has become more comfortable, in terms of the quality of seats, in addition to providing places on long roads for passengers to rest for some time.
Transportation is now able to transport heavier loads than in the past.

transportation before and now

Every day scientists and engineers work to improve the properties of transportation. Almost sixty years ago, the steam engine was used in all means of transportation, such as cars, buses, trains, and ships.

This was considered a huge development in the transportation industry. Coal continued to be used to power the steam engine until the discovery of petroleum.

They used gasoline and gas as fuel to obtain the energy needed for the various means of transportation. Then another progress occurred, where gas was used instead of gasoline in many means of transportation.

Transportation past and present

Reduce costs and increase efficiency

The most important concern of scientists specialized in the development of transportation means is to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Because the most important goal is to improve the transportation service, while maintaining the reduction of transportation costs.

Because this is one of the reasons for the recovery of trade between countries, where the prices of goods do not increase by a high rate as a result of the high cost of transportation.

And the cost reduction leads to a boom in tourism as well, as the cost of transportation is within the reach of many categories of people.

Means of transportation in the past

What is the motivation behind the development of transportation

Global trade is the most powerful driver of transportation development. This trade began since ancient times, when commercial trips were to India to buy spices and fabrics, and transport them to the countries of the Middle East or to Europe. As well as trips to Africa to transport gold and slaves to Europe and America. The means of transportation used in the past depended on animals.

Till the invention of ships, cars and planes, and as a result exports and imports increased. The development of means of transportation had the greatest role in trade exchange between countries.

Transportation then and now essay

Roads and transportation

We cannot talk about transportation without talking about roads. Where there is a close link between road construction and transportation development.

Would it be useful to develop means of transportation without creating roads that allow transportation to move easily?.

Therefore, it has become necessary to establish new roads commensurate with the speed of transportation, as well as with the increasing number of vehicles.

Gas stations are also set up at suitable distances, especially on long roads. Some maintenance centers are also being established, and services are provided to travelers

Transportation today compared to the past

The first modern highway was designed in 1756-1836 by John Loudon Mack, using soil and gravel as paving. And when the means of transportation developed, especially in Germany in 1886 AD and the United States in 1908 AD, the need for the construction of asphalt roads increased accordingly.

The Red Cliffy Nottingham Road became the world’s first paved road. Iron bars were also used to construct the railways on which the trains travel.

Thus, the road and railways were expanded, which revolutionized the travel of people and the transport of goods.

Describe the evolution of transportation and travel essay

What are the benefits of the development of means of transportation and what are its harms?

Undoubtedly, we are benefiting from the tremendous development that has occurred in the means of transportation. It saves us time and becomes more comfortable.

We do not feel the trouble of traveling as our ancestors did in the past. Where travel has become an enjoyable journey, we can watch a movie or enjoy reading a book.

However, there are risks to our lives due to transportation, such as:

Frequent traffic accidents, which claim the lives of many people.
Severe congestion, the streets became crowded with public and private cars.
An increase in the level of pollution in the environment.

A comparison of past and present transportation methods

To compare the means of transportation in the past and the present, we can compare speed, effort, cost and risks.

Comparison in terms of speed

Transportation in the present has become very fast compared to transportation in the past.

Comparison in terms of effort

The current means of transportation provide us with comfort and enjoyment of travel.

Cost comparison

Despite the advantages of modern means of transportation, it is considered less expensive.

Comparison in terms of risk

Modern means of transportation have become more dangerous due to the huge number of means of transportation that are on the road.

Transportation changes from past to present

In the past, humans relied on animals to move from one place to another. Man used donkeys, horses, camels, and mules to move him or carry his goods. Also, some peoples were able to use elephants to move and carry goods.

Then the means of transportation developed little by little, until we reached the modern means of transportation with better quality and lower cost.

Also, we can transport thousands of tons of goods from one country to another with ease. This development had a significant impact on the flourishing of trade and the exchange of goods, whether at the local or international levels.

What is the difference between transportation then and now

The difference between the means of transportation in the past and the present is very big. Scientists will continue to work on the development of means of transportation in the future. As it is the most important reason for economic progress.

You find that local and international trade depends on the development of the transportation network, whether land, sea or air.

In addition to the movement of individuals from one country to another, whether for tourism, work or study. The lower the cost of transportation, the more people will travel and move from one place to another.

The best day of my life speech

The most beautiful day of my life is the day when I turned 18, so I can get a driver’s license, my father promised me that he would buy me a car when I turned 18, I love to drive and I learned to drive last year in preparation for getting the license, today I will I go with my father to the car show, in order to choose the right car for me. I am still confused and did not decide what kind of car to choose, so I will take my older brother with me, to give me advice, I trust him completely.

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transportation

Introduction

The movement of people and goods from place to place is known as transportation. Together with communication—the movement of ideas—transportation has been essential in bringing about the integration of regions and nations into a single world community. Transportation movements, combined into various systems and networks, are by way of land, water, and air and by such means as automobile, airplane, railroad, ship, and pipeline.

The Need for Transportation

Transportation is needed because few economic resources—raw materials, fuels, food, manufactured goods—are located where they are wanted. Each region or place on Earth produces more than it consumes of some goods and services and less than it consumes of others. Through transportation, goods are moved from where there are surpluses to where there are shortages. Improved transportation has extended the areas in which various goods can be profitably marketed and thus has helped make the goods widely available.

The moving of people to places of work, education, and recreation and for their other needs and wants also requires transportation. Like goods, people are moved to where they are needed. But as decision makers people also travel to where they want to be. In recreational activities, such as pleasure driving, transportation can be an end in itself.

The demand for transportation is derived from the need for people and goods to be at a particular place. In satisfying this need, transportation gives people and goods greater value and place utility. Sometimes, as in the aging of wine or the ripening of bananas while they are en route to their destinations, goods may acquire greater form utility. The in-transit storage of goods provided by a vehicle may reduce the need for warehouse space at the destination. This is an example of time utility—getting goods to a destination at the time of their greatest usefulness.

The demand for transportation—and the rate of actual traffic flow—tends to be proportional to the population of the destination area. Traffic flow between two areas also depends on their proximity—flow generally tends to be greater the closer the areas are to each other.

The concentration of transportation services in heavily urbanized and industrialized areas is a result of the great amount of traffic. However, political or military considerations or prospects for future economic growth may lead to the construction of transportation facilities even where they are not profitable. Economic development in nonindustrialized countries, for example, commonly requires extensive investment in roads, airfields, harbors, and other transport facilities long before there is much traffic.

In industrialized countries such as the United States, transportation routes traditionally have been provided for in advance of other economic development. The Cumberland Road, for example, was built early in the 1800s to open the Ohio Valley to settlement. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, helped settle the Great Lakes region. Federal land grants to railroad companies in the 19th century helped settle the West. In Canada roads and railroads were being extended to the north in the 1960s and 1970s to facilitate settlement and the exploitation of natural resources. In the long run, transporting goods from one place to another is justified only if the goods can be produced cheaply enough at the first place so as to offset the transportation cost to the second.

Transportation Modes

The various means, or modes, of transportation consist of both the specific types of vehicles used and the facilities needed for their movement. The modes include people walking and carrying loads, human-powered machines such as bicycles, draft animals pulling wagons and coaches, and pack animals; motor-powered highway vehicles such as trucks, buses, automobiles, taxis, and motorcycles; water carriers such as ships, barges, hydrofoils, and hovercraft; railroad trains; aircraft; and devices such as chutes, conveyor belts, pipelines, and electric lines.

Transportation modes can be classified by whether they are by land, water, or air; by how they are powered; by whether they use continuous flow or not; by whether they carry passengers or freight or both; and by whether or not they use fixed routes. Such distinctions are blurred somewhat by the fact that several modes are typically used for the entire movement of persons or goods from initial origin to final destination.

For example, a woman traveling from Chicago, Ill., to New York City may take a bus and a subway train to get to Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, where she can board an airplane for New York’s La Guardia Airport. At La Guardia she may reverse the process, riding buses and subway trains until she reaches her destination. For the trips to and from the airports she might instead have used an automobile or a taxicab. She might have traveled cross-country by automobile, bus, or train instead of by airplane.

A transport vehicle such as an automobile, an airplane, or an ordinary ship has both its motive power and its facilities for carrying goods or people in the same unit. In other cases, such as a train of railroad cars pulled by a locomotive, the barges pushed or pulled by a towboat, or the highway trailer pulled by a truck tractor, the motive power and the cargo or passengers are in separate units. When power and payload units are separate the power vehicle can be utilized elsewhere while the carrier vehicles are being loaded or unloaded or are in storage. Separation of units also permits changes in the number of carrier vehicles, as with a railroad train or a barge tow, as the volume of traffic varies.

The power for moving a vehicle may be furnished by a natural process such as wind or gravity. The power may be generated in an engine by the burning of fuel such as wood, charcoal, coal, gasoline, kerosine, or fuel oil. Power may also be furnished by an electric motor operated from batteries, an overhead wire or third rail, or a diesel engine such as in a diesel-electric locomotive. Diesel engines have increasingly replaced steam engines in maritime and railroad transportation and are also used in buses and trucks. Gasoline engines are used in automobiles and also in many buses and trucks. Turbines—both jet and propjet—have replaced engines using reciprocating pistons in most airline transportation.

Freight Transportation

Heavy or bulky goods and those of low value in proportion to their weight or bulk generally tend to be moved by transportation modes that use large vehicles such as ships and barges, which travel at slow speeds. Compact, perishable, and high-value goods tend to be moved by transportation modes that use small vehicles such as trucks and especially aircraft, which travel at high speeds.

Goods being transported can be classified into general cargo, or package freight, on the one hand and bulk cargo on the other. General cargo usually consists of merchandise, including manufactured items such as machinery, that has a high value in proportion to its weight or to the space it occupies in a vehicle. Bulk cargo generally consists of goods that are of low value in proportion to their weight or bulk. They include ores, grains, coal, oil, petroleum products, and other raw materials and fuels.

General cargo may be transported in boxes, crates, bales, barrels, and other containers. Because of the great variety of shapes, sizes, and weights of general cargo, its handling is less easily mechanized and requires a larger labor force than the handling of bulk cargo. Bulk goods can be conveniently taken on and off ships, railroad cars, trucks, barges, and other carriers by means of gravity, suction, conveyor belts, pipes, or other continuous-flow devices. When being loaded, bulk goods also are able to flow around obstructions in a vehicle and thus fully occupy the available cargo space. Most of the world’s shipping is designed primarily for the movement of bulk goods.

Bulk cargoes can be classified into dry bulk and liquid bulk. Dry bulk goods can be packaged, such as in bags or bales, but more commonly they are not. Sugar, for example, formerly handled only in bags, is increasingly being transported in bulk. Dry bulk goods often are moved in specially designed vessels. They frequently are handled in ships as “bottoming cargo,” to fill any last-minute unused capacity. In some cases dry bulk goods are moved by overland pipeline. Even some solids, such as coal and ores, can be moved through pipes in a liquid suspension, or slurry. Electricity is transported by power lines, a continuous-flow device.

Liquid bulk goods are transported either by continuous flow in pipelines or by tankers, barges, trucks, or railroad cars. Tankers account for about half the tonnage capacity of all oceangoing merchant ships. Their average size is much larger than that of any other type of ship. Some supertankers have capacities of more than 300,000 tons. The principal cargo carried by tankers is crude oil, the leading commodity in international trade ( see petroleum, “Transportation and Distribution of Oil” ).

Many small tankers, uncompetitive with supertankers for moving oil on the longer voyages, are used for moving grain. Some vessels, known as oilbulk-ore vessels (OBOs), carry oil in one direction and ore on the return voyages. There also are specialized tanker ships that carry such chemicals as heated liquid sulfur or extremely cold liquefied natural gas. Specialized railroad tank cars and highway trucks also are designed to carry chemicals and other products under controlled temperatures and pressures.

Freight transportation in the United States is dominated by railroads. They carry about 40 percent of the total volume, measured in ton-miles. Railroad freight traffic, while chiefly bulk, is the most diversified of any transportation mode. Motor truck traffic between cities in the United States has been increasing rapidly since the 1920s when it first became a significant mode of transportation. Trucking accounts for about 20 percent of total freight volume. But because trucks carry general merchandise with a high average value per ton, they account for more than half the revenues from all domestic freight. Even when cargo is moved between major terminals by rail, air, or water carriers, it is usually picked up and delivered by truck.

Inland waterways in the United States, including the Great Lakes, account for about 15 percent of the total freight volume. Traffic is almost entirely of bulk goods, chiefly iron ore, coal, petroleum, lumber, steel, grain, and chemicals. Powerful diesel towboats and barge tows on the rivers can carry about 40,000 tons of cargo each. Oil pipelines in the United States account for more than 20 percent of the total freight traffic. Pipeline transportation of crude oil and petroleum products has largely replaced coastal tanker and railroad tankcar transportation. Air cargo traffic, although increasing rapidly, accounts for less than one percent of the total. The goods carried tend to be perishable, compact, and valuable.

One of the most common methods of handling freight cargoes is stacking individual crates, boxes, and bales on wood or metal platforms known as pallets. Pallets are moved onto or off vehicles by forklift trucks, cranes, or various kinds of conveyors specially designed to transport pallets.

Cargo can also be stuffed into large, uniform-size metal containers. Such containers are placed in general-cargo ships, in specially designed container ships, and on barges. They can be carried “piggyback” by railroad trains as trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) or as container-on-flatcar (COFC) cargo. In TOFC, truck semitrailers (with their wheel assemblies) are loaded; in COFC, containers (without wheels) are loaded. Truck semitrailers and containers are also placed on flatbed trailers hauled by highway truck tractors. The semitrailers and containers can easily be loaded aboard a ship or barge, either by large cranes or, in the case of vessels known as Ro-Ro (Roll-on Roll-off), by means of ramps. Some containers are carried on wide-bodied jet aircraft.

A large container ship, because of its greater size and speed and less time spent loading and unloading in port, can often replace four to six conventional general-cargo vessels and can move the cargo at much lower cost. Container ships were first built in large numbers in the late 1960s. As a result, many conventional ocean freighters were made obsolete, as were the port facilities that had been designed and located to handle their cargoes.

Containerization is not new. Ordinary trucks and railroad boxcars are forms of containers. But unlike modern containers, each may be loaded with a variety of merchandise that must be divided at a freight station and sent to several destinations. Such less-than-carload (LCL) traffic can be handled more efficiently by truck than by railroad because a truck can be driven directly to a destination area and provide door-to-door service.

Passenger Transportation

In metropolitan areas of the United States, movements of people between home and work account for about 40 percent of the total number of passenger journeys. Recreational trips account for about 15 percent of all trips in the typical urban area. Automobile riding, for example, is not only a means of reaching a destination but is a popular form of outdoor recreation. Recreational boating also is popular. Cruise ships have made up the major proportion of ocean-going passenger vessels since jet aircraft became the favored mode of transoceanic travel. ( See also travel and tourism .)

The automobile dominates intercity passenger transportation in the United States. It accounts for more than 80 percent of the total passenger miles. No other mode of transportation approaches the flexibility and convenience of the automobile, which provides door-to-door service independent of schedules.

The railroad is no longer a major means of intercity passenger transportation in the United States, though railroad passenger service thrives in much of the rest of the world. As recently as the early 1940s there were more than 20,000 daily intercity passenger trains in the United States. By the early 1970s there were only about 200. Whereas railroads accounted for almost 70 percent of the total passenger-miles by public carrier in 1930, by 1970 they accounted for less than one percent. In 1971 the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, a federal agency that is also known as Amtrak, took over most of the intercity railroad passenger service. Most Amtrak trains operate in the Northeast corridor between Boston, Mass.; New York City; Philadelphia, Pa.; Baltimore, Md.; and Washington, D.C. A large proportion of the New York-Washington service is by high-speed electric trains called Metroliners. There is suburban railroad passenger service in the metropolitan areas of such large cities as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and San Francisco. Electric interurban railroads and street railways in cities have almost disappeared.

Intercity scheduled buses in the United States serve many more communities than do railroads. Using modern expressways, they provide swift service between major cities, though many communities not on expressways now have much less bus service than they formerly had. Air carriers dominate public intercity passenger transportation in the United States. The growth of air passenger traffic has been rapid, increasing from only 14 percent of the total in 1950 to more than 85 percent in the 1980s. Passenger travel by water carriers in the United States is insignificant except for some ferry services.

Carrier Organizations

There are several types of transportation carrier organizations. Common carriers offer their services to the general public at standard terms and rates. They usually operate over fixed routes and on regular schedules. In the United States all interstate common carriers are regulated by the federal government. Almost all railroads and intercity bus services are common carriers, as is much of intercity trucking, inland waterway barge traffic, and petroleum pipelines. All are regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) or by individual states. Almost all scheduled airlines in the United States are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Shipping lines participate in international conferences, or cartels, which set the schedules and usually the rates charged for common carriers on most major ocean routes. They compete with nonconference lines, however, and face the possibility that large-scale users of ships might operate their own vessels if conference rates are too high. International scheduled airline services are operated by agreement with the affected countries. They are largely regulated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

Contract carriers carry people or goods by agreement with a limited number of shippers. They do not operate over fixed routes or on regular schedules. They include tramp ships, which operate under charter and mainly carry shiploads of bulk cargo rather than general cargo. Nonscheduled, or supplementary, airlines and the charter services of scheduled airlines also are examples of contract carriers, as are urban taxicabs and charter buses. Contract carriers carry a large share of the world’s ocean cargo.

Private carriers serve individual or corporate owners. They are not for hire to the public. Most automobiles in the United States are private carriers. Many companies operate their own truck fleets, and some of the largest shippers, especially petroleum companies, operate their own ships and barges.

Transportation Terminals

A transportation terminal is the place where goods and people are transferred from one carrier or mode to another. It is the place where vehicles are loaded and unloaded or where several vehicles are assembled into or separated from trains. Terminals are located where transportation routes intersect and where journeys or shipments begin or end. They include seaports, airports, railroad yards and depots, truck terminals, bus stations, and automobile parking lots.

Transportation terminals tend to be located within or close to a city’s downtown area. But the need for large tracts of land at relatively low cost often requires locations in outlying areas. For example, a 700-foot- (200-meter-) long berth for a container ship requires as much as 25 acres (10 hectares) of adjoining land for assembling and distributing cargoes by truck and rail. As a result, many port terminals, often located along congested downtown waterfronts, have been abandoned. Larger terminals have been established most commonly on the seaward edges of such large port cities as Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Modern commercial airports require even more space. Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, for example, covers ten square miles (25 square kilometers). Even larger are airports such as those for Dallas-Fort Worth, Tex.; Kansas City, Mo.; and Los Angeles, Calif. Airports also need unobstructed space for long distances past the ends of their runways. A modern railroad classification yard, in which trains are assembled and disassembled, may be as much as 1 / 2 by 5 miles (1 by 8 kilometers).

In many cases, the relocation of freight terminals has been due to the increased decentralization of the industrial and commercial establishments that are the sources and destinations of freight traffic. Decentralization is also a result of the improved access that modern highways have given to outlying areas. The traffic congestion, noise, and air and water pollution associated with transportation activities also make it desirable to locate terminals away from residential areas. As a side effect of decentralization, much of the land formerly needed by railroads and ports for central-city terminals has become available for nontransportation uses.

Passengers wait for the arrivals and departures of common and charter carriers at airport, railroad, and bus terminals. Amenities include ticket offices, waiting rooms, toilet facilities, and a variety of business establishments. In terminals handling international traffic, there are customs, immigration, public health, and quarantine facilities. In and near major railroad stations and airports there often are hotels.

Transportation Routes

A transportation route is the regular path that is followed by a movement of people or goods. Ideally it follows the shortest possible distance—a straight line, or what is known on the curving surface of the Earth as a great circle. But natural barriers, such as intervening landmasses on ocean routes, often block such direct paths. Inland waterways usually follow the winding courses of river valleys. Land routes bend to avoid steep slopes or to go around bodies of water. Air routes deviate from straight lines to avoid bad weather or to make use of tail winds. Transportation routes may also deviate from straight lines to tap intermediate sources of traffic or to avoid crossing specific political boundaries.

The world’s largest volume of ocean traffic is across the North Atlantic between the highly urbanized, industrialized, and densely populated regions of eastern North America and Western Europe. Branches of the North Atlantic sea route on the North American side lead to ports up the St. Lawrence River and on the Great Lakes and to ports on the East and Gulf coasts. On the European side one branch leads to and from ports in northern Europe; another passes through the Mediterranean Sea, leading to and from ports in southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and northern Africa. Mediterranean ports compete with those on the Atlantic and on the North and Baltic seas for the trade of the European interior, much as the Great Lakes, Gulf coast, and Atlantic ports compete for the trade of the North American interior. Through the Suez Canal the Mediterranean route connects with Indian Ocean routes to India, Japan, and other countries in southern and eastern Asia.

Another major sea route, through the Panama Canal, links the seaboards of Western Europe and eastern North America with the western coasts of North America and South America. Major routes also extend from the Panama Canal across the Pacific Ocean to Australia and New Zealand and to Japan and the eastern and southeastern coasts of Asia. Other transpacific routes directly link western North America and eastern Asia.

Another major world shipping route across the Atlantic links Western Europe with Brazil and eastern South America. A branch of this route that curves around southern Africa links Western Europe with ports in Africa and on the Indian Ocean, replacing the Suez Canal route. Another major route is that between the Persian Gulf and Japan.

The world pattern of air routes is similar to that of ocean routes, though an airplane can follow a more direct route than a ship can. The heaviest volume of international air traffic, like sea traffic, is across the North Atlantic between North America and Europe. There is also a great volume of air traffic between the various countries of Europe as well as on domestic flights within such major countries as Russia and the United States. The most heavily used airways in the United States are between Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.; New York City and Chicago; and Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Inland waterways are concentrated in the world’s heavily populated river basins and lowland plains. Among the busiest are the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers in North America, the Rhine River and other rivers and canals in northwestern Europe, and the system centering on the Volga and Don rivers in Eastern Europe. The United States has about 25,000 miles (40,200 kilometers) of inland waterway routes, including the Atlantic and Gulf intracoastal waterways. Land transportation routes are densest where urban commercial and industrial activities are the most extensively developed. Such core regions are in the central and eastern United States and southeastern Canada, in northwestern Europe, and in Japan. Other major transportation concentrations include the Pacific coast of North America, the Rio de Janeiro–São Paulo area of southern Brazil, the Ganges plain of northern India, the eastern areas of China, and south-eastern Australia.

The nets, or webs, of transportation routes are less densely developed in regions such as the interior western United States, the southern part of western Canada, Spain and Portugal, and southern Sweden and Norway. Some regions are served by railroads and highways that connect with transportation nets only at one end. Such transportation tentacles extend to otherwise isolated localities such as mining areas, logging camps, and other resource-extracting settlements. Examples are the rail lines and highways extending into northern Canada and into Siberia. Because of geography some sparsely settled regions such as the Amazon Basin of South America have few or no railroads and are served by inland waterways, air routes, and a few roads.

In the United States and Canada the transportation web is densest in the general area bounded by the Ohio and Potomac rivers on the south, the Missouri River on the west, and the St. Lawrence Valley. Several corridors within this densely populated, highly industrialized core region of North America generate extremely heavy movements of both goods and passengers. The most noted corridor is through the megalopolis stretching between Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Others are the axis between Detroit, Mich.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pa.; the corridor from Chicago to Milwaukee, Wis.; and the corridor connecting Detroit; Toronto, Ont.; Montreal; and Quebec, Que.

In the southeastern United States, goods traffic very often moves to and from ocean and river ports. There also are major centers of passenger and freight traffic in the interior, such as at Atlanta, Ga.

In the interior of the western United States, transportation routes are spaced much farther apart, a reflection of the low population density. But on the heavily populated Pacific coast, a north-south corridor of closely spaced rail, highway, and air routes links San Diego, Calif.; Los Angeles; the San Francisco Bay area; and the Willamette Valley–Puget Sound–Strait of Georgia cities of Portland, Ore.; Tacoma and Seattle, Wash., in the United States and Vancouver, B.C., in Canada.

There were only about 172,900 miles (278,250 kilometers) of railroad routes in the United States in the late 1980s, as compared with about 254,000 miles (408,760 kilometers) in the peak year of 1916. Railroad mileage has steadily fallen as little-used branch lines have been abandoned in favor of highways. The United States has about 3.5 million miles (5.6 million kilometers) of surfaced roads. A network of pipelines links the Gulf coast and interior oil fields to the northeastern urban areas. Other major pipelines serve the Pacific coast.

All-water transportation routes via southern Africa, the Panama Canal, and the Suez Canal (before 1967) have faced increasing competition from land-sea combination routes that cross North America or Eurasia. Traffic from Japan to Europe, for example, may be routed first by ship across the Sea of Japan to Russia and then on the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Eurasia. Traffic from Japan to the eastern United States may be routed first by ship across the Pacific and then by rail or highway across the United States. Traffic from North America’s West coast to Europe may be routed first by rail or highway across to the East coast and then by ship across the Atlantic. Speedier transfer of cargoes between ships and overland carriers at the ports has greatly facilitated this choice of routings.

The world pattern of transportation routes changes slowly. The most important recent changes are a result of the growth of air transportation; the development of routes from new sources of fuels and metals in formerly isolated regions such as Labrador, northwestern Australia, and central Africa; the closing of the Suez Canal in 1956 and 1967; the opening of the enlarged St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959; and the opening of the Arkansas River to large-scale barge navigation in 1971. Transportation routes also have changed as supertankers, OBO vessels, container ships, and railroad piggyback service have been introduced.

Transportation Costs

Transportation costs depend primarily on distance and on the amount of goods or the number of people being carried. Reduced costs are generally achieved through the use of transportation modes that permit larger volumes or numbers to be moved. Savings are also realized by using as much as possible of the capacity of a particular mode or vehicle. For many movements of passengers and goods, however, the primary aim is not low cost but greater speed, convenience, or comfort. Such convenient modes as the private automobile or the taxicab, for example, are much costlier to use than a bus or train.

The cost of transportation includes both terminal costs and line-haul costs. Terminal costs are those incurred in assembling and distributing passengers and goods and loading them onto and unloading them from the vehicle. In the case of railroads they include the costs of making and breaking trains. The transfer from one mode to another, as between land and water carriers at a port, also is a terminal cost. Linehaul costs are those incurred in the actual movement of goods or people between terminals. They are generally proportional to distance, or length of haul (and fuel costs), and to time (and labor costs).

Another distinction is between fixed costs and variable costs. Fixed costs—also known as overhead, or constant, costs—include administration, sales, financing, insurance, rents, depreciation, and taxes. They are largely independent of particular transportation movements. Variable costs—also known as marginal, or out-of-pocket, costs—such as for fuel, are those attributed to a particular transportation movement and depend on actual traffic volume.

Costs are partly related to the load factor, the proportion of the capacity of the vehicle that actually carries the payload of cargo or passengers. If, for example, a 100-seat airplane carries 60 passengers, its load factor is 60 percent. Transportation operators try to achieve as high a load factor as possible by offering less frequent service during off-peak periods than during peak periods. In this way they can meet the increased demands of peak periods but not be saddled with unused capacity at other times.

Most rates and fares charged shippers and travelers fall between what are known as the value of service and the cost of service. The value of service is the maximum rate or fare that can be charged. If the charge is higher, transfer or substitution will take place—the traveler or shipper will find another transportation mode, another carrier of the same mode, another destination, another source of supply, another market, or cancel altogether.

If the carrier is a private enterprise, as are most transportation services in the United States, the total rates and fares charged must be sufficiently above the cost of service so as to give the carrier a profit. If traffic is carried at below cost, the loss must be made up by some form of public subsidy—that is, the government and the taxpayers share the transportation costs with the operators and the users. The desirability of a public subsidy is based on estimating whether the public benefit is great enough.

Early History of Transportation

Throughout most of human history, people’s movements on land were restricted to those speeds and distances that could be attained by walking. The use of sledges, pack animals, and then draft animals pulling wheeled vehicles increased the distance that early men could traverse and the amount of goods that they could transport ( see wheel ).

Long-distance transportation was mainly by water—on rivers and lakes, along seacoasts, and from island to island, usually in sight of land. Early vessels, propelled by currents and by paddles or poles, included rafts made of reeds or branches, boats made of skins, and dugout canoes. Later vessels used sails, which harnessed the wind. Extensive water commerce was carried on by the civilizations in ancient Phoenicia, around the Aegean Sea, and along the valleys of the Nile River in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, the Indus River (now in Pakistan), and the Yellow River in China.

Some of the earliest long-distance overland trade routes date from around 2000 bc . These were the trails along which amber was carried from near the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Starting in the 6th century bc , the Persian rulers Cyrus and Darius built a road system in their empire. Around the end of the 4th century bc a road system was built in the Maurya Empire of India. Camel caravans carried silk from China to Europe on trails that perhaps predate the 4th century bc . By the 3rd century ad the road network of the Roman Empire had reached Britain, Gaul (modern France), and the eastern Mediterranean region.

During the Middle Ages, improved sailing vessels and the magnetic compass made open-sea voyages out of sight of land much safer ( see navigation ). Voyages of discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries greatly enlarged the world known to Europeans. An extensive sea trade developed, with merchant vessels carrying gold and silver from Latin America, tea and spices from Asia, and enslaved Black people captured from Africa.

Meanwhile, advances were being made in bridge and road construction, and the lock gate for canals was developed. Between the 16th and 18th centuries an extensive canal system was built in France. Transportation improvements in 18th-century Great Britain included the establishment of a turnpike (toll road) system and the use of iron for bridge construction. In 1815, John Loudon MacAdam first built a macadamized road, surfaced with compacted broken stone.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas did not have wheeled vehicles. Some groups carried goods on an A-shaped drag called a travois. Indigenous trails often followed animal trails. For inland water transportation Indigenous peoples and later European colonists used dugout, bark, or skin canoes.

Late in the 18th century gravel roads were introduced in the United States. One of the first was a toll road, the Lancaster Turnpike in Pennsylvania. Plank roads and corduroy roads, made of lumber or logs laid side by side on the roadbed to overcome dust and mud, were built in the 1830s and 1840s. By the early 1800s transportation was being provided by animal-drawn Conestoga wagons and stagecoaches.

Flatboats were common on inland waterways. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 heralded a great era of canal building that linked the Atlantic seaboard with the lands west of the Appalachians. After 1818, packet ships regularly sailed across the Atlantic to Europe. In the mid-1800s, fast, efficient clipper ships were built to sail from Atlantic ports around South America to California and Asia.

Steam Power

The use of steam power to drive vehicles was applied as early as 1769 when a Frenchman, Nicolas Cugnot, demonstrated a steam carriage intended for use on common roads. It was in water transportation, however, that the early use of steam power was the most successful and enduring.

A short-lived steamboat service was begun by John Fitch on the Delaware River in 1790. In 1807 Robert Fulton established a successful steamboat line on the Hudson River ( see Fitch ; Fulton ). By the 1820s, steamboats plied the Great Lakes and the rivers of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. Along with the development of canals, their use greatly reduced shipping costs to and from the interior and helped open vast areas of North America to settlement. During that same time, steamships were introduced onto European sea routes. The first oceangoing steamship, the Savannah, crossed the Atlantic from Savannah, Ga., to Liverpool, England, in 1819, although it used sails for most of the voyage. By the 1840s, vessels were crossing the Atlantic entirely by steam power. In 1840 Samuel Cunard established the first regularly scheduled steamship line between England and North America. These early steamships were wooden and were propelled by side paddle wheels. They were primarily passenger and mail ships, since their cargo capacity was limited by the large space needed to carry coal for fuel on long ocean voyages.

With the adoption of the speedier screw propeller, the building of stronger iron-hulled vessels, and the establishment of coaling stations along their routes, ocean steamships by the 1890s had exceeded sailing ships in tonnage carried. Sailing ships soon were eliminated from long-distance ocean trade.

New, shorter ocean routes were established. The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, enabled vessels to bypass the long voyage around Africa on routes between Europe and Asia. The Panama Canal, opened in 1914, bypassed the voyage around South America on routes between Atlantic and Pacific ports.

Growth of Railroads

Railroads were used in European mines as early as the mid-1500s. Men or animals pushed wagons loaded with ore along wooden tracks. Later, iron tracks were used and, with the advent of steam power, wagons were hauled by ropes connected to stationary engines. In Wales in 1804, Richard Trevithick demonstrated the first successful railroad steam locomotive. In 1825 the Stockton and Darlington railway near Newcastle, England, became the first common carrier to use steam locomotives.

In the United States the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the South Carolina Railroad began operation in 1830. Like the early roads, they were inland feeders to ports. Railroads spread rapidly in the eastern and southern United States, with short lines being merged to form through routes. By the mid-1850s, railways linked the Atlantic seaboard and the Midwest. In 1869 the first transcontinental route was completed to the Pacific coast.

Railroads became the dominent mode of overland transportation in the last half of the 19th century. Faster and more powerful locomotives and larger freight and passenger cars were built. Standardization of track gauges and the adoption of standard time zones aided efficiency. The invention of air brakes, automatic signaling, and the automatic coupler increased safety. Sleeping cars and dining cars increased passenger comfort and convenience ( see brake ; locomotive ).

In 1832 the horse-drawn tramcar on rails was adopted in New York City and in the following decades became widely accepted as an inexpensive form of public urban transportation. In the 1870s, steam-powered cable-drawn trams became popular. Beginning in 1863 in London, England, steam-powered underground railways (subways) were built ( see subway ).

Electric power was introduced to land transportation in the mid-1880s when electric street railways began operating in the United States, Canada, and Europe. By 1900 they had replaced horsecars and cable cars as the chief form of urban transportation. Electrified elevated or subway lines were built in several European cities and in Boston, Chicago, and New York City ( see street railway ) Electrification spread early in the 20th century to intercity railroad lines but later the diesel-electric locomotive became dominant in the United States ( see diesel engine ). By the 1950s, the automobile, bus, and airplane had replaced the railroad train as the principal passenger carriers in the United States. Trucks, waterways, and pipelines also competed increasingly with railroads in freight hauling.

The Automobile and the Air Age

Some of the first successful gasoline automobiles were developed in Germany by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler in the 1880s and in the United States by Charles E. and J. Frank Duryea in 1893. Although some early automobiles were powered by steam and electricity, the internal-combustion gasoline engine soon became the favored form of motive power.

The early farm-to-market roads in the countryside were rarely paved. By the 1890s, however, some roads near the cities were being paved in response to the growing popularity of bicycle riding. As the automobile came into common use in the 1900s, 1916 the Federal Aid Road Act provided for massive federal aid in highway construction. Limited-access express highways originated in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s with the building of the first Italian autostrada and German autobahn. One of the first expressways in the United States was the Pennsylvania Turnpike, opened in 1940. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and later amendments provided for a network of 42,500 miles of interstate expressways to be completed by the mid-1970s.

The first successful manned, engine-powered flight in a heavier-than-air craft was achieved in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, N.C., by Orville and Wilbur Wright ( see Wright, Wilbur and Orville ). Airplanes were used in combat during World War I. Regular airmail routes began in the United States in 1918. During the 1920s and 1930s, mail planes commonly carried passengers. In the 1930s, scheduled flights were begun over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The development during World War II of multiengine long-distance planes, aided by reliable electronic navigation and weather forecasting, led to the rapid advance of commercial air transportation. As a result, shipping lines rapidly declined as major passenger carriers.

With the introduction of jet power to commercial air service in the 1950s, speeds were doubled and costs were greatly reduced. Propeller planes were largely replaced on major transcontinental and trans-oceanic routes. The testing of supersonic jet transports began in Europe and the United States in the late 1960s. During that same time, jumbo jet aircraft, with capacities of nearly 500 passengers each, were brought into service.

Transportation Problems

The world’s transportation facilities are elaborate but unevenly developed. Many underindustrialized countries cannot afford the transportation services they need. At the same time, some highly industrialized countries are oversupplied. In the United States, for example, there are many miles of underused railroads, inland waterways, and rural roads.

Transportation movements are hampered by economic barriers such as tariffs and import and export quotas. Different railroad gauges on opposite sides of an international boundary often require a costly transfer of freight and passengers from one national railroad to another.

“Cargo preference” laws of some countries, restricting those vessels eligible to take particular cargoes, may impede the most economic operation of the world’s shipping fleets. The desire of many countries to have their own fleets of ships or to promote their own airlines may also divert traffic from the most efficient carriers.

Many countries regulate their transportation services so that the various modes are complementary rather than competitive. In the United States, however, government regulations vary widely from mode to mode and between those transportation movements that cross state boundaries and those that do not. A major step toward developing a unified national transportation policy was taken in 1966 with the creation of the Cabinet-level Department of Transportation.

Laws, customs, and labor agreements often require the employment of more persons than are needed for efficient transportation service, especially as technological advances such as container ships are introduced. But layoffs of unneeded workers may result in large-scale unemployment and create severe social problems. Similarly, the building of modern terminal facilities in certain ports and cities may so concentrate traffic that other, bypassed ports and cities face economic depression.

There often are costly and inconvenient delays when people and goods are transferred from one transportation mode to another. These delays include time spent by a traveler at a corner bus stop, at an airplane loading gate or baggage counter, or in the air while an airplane is waiting for clearance to land. They include the time spent by general cargo ships while in port being loaded or unloaded.

The building of expressways and tollways, with their wide rights-of-way and complex intersections, is very costly and has forced the relocation of hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, particularly in cities. Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed. Many of the people displaced are from low-income areas in the inner cities and are those least able to find new homes.

Traffic congestion in the United States has been relieved somewhat as cities have decentralized and population and business densities have decreased. But rush-hour traffic jams and lack of parking space, especially in downtown areas, are still acute problems. Greater use of mass transit services is a likely solution. Unless mass transit is heavily subsidized, however, it can neither meet its costs from a fare structure that would be low enough nor provide service that would be frequent enough to induce people to leave their cars at home. Meanwhile, the decline of public transportation services has hit hardest at the poor, the elderly, the young, and the handicapped, who are least likely to have access to private automobiles.

Transportation facilities and operation also affect the quality of the environment. In an effort to reduce air pollution, laws in the United States set limits on automobile emissions. Such antipollution measures, however, may add to the expense of building and operating motor vehicles. Similarly, design changes required by laws limiting the noise levels and air pollution of aircraft may decrease the operating efficiency of the aircraft. The development of supersonic aircraft, in particular, has been opposed because of the loud sonic boom they create while in flight. Fear of pollution from massive oil leaks has affected plans for new pipelines and the building and operation of supertankers. Natural scenery may be marred and historical landmarks destroyed by construction for highways, railroads, and airports.

Transportation facilities also present a safety hazard. The private automobile, in particular, is one of the most dangerous modes of transportation, though accident rates are slowly being reduced. Major accidents on other transportation modes are relatively rare, though when they do occur, as in the crash of an airliner or in the collision of passenger trains, the loss of life may be great.

Advances in Transportation

Technological advances in transportation have included the development of superspeed trains, such as Japan’s “bullet train” of the 1960s and France’s TGV (Train de Grand Vitesse) of the 1970s and 1980s. These advances gave engineers the inspiration to design such experimental railroad systems as the magnetic levitation, or maglev, train, which by the early 1990s had only short test systems set up in Germany and Japan. Improvements in power generation and transmission and concern for the air and noise pollution caused by diesel engines have prompted automobile makers to develop cars that will run on alternative types of fuel. One result has been the prototype of an electric car. ( See also automobile ; railroad .)

A greater variety of ships, including submarine tankers and fast, multiple-hulled surface ships, have been developed. Other new types of vessels that are available include the hydrofoil, which travels on sea wings with its hull above water, and the surface-effect ship, or hovercraft, which rides above the water on a cushion of air.

The widespread use of atomic power for ship propulsion is a major research goal. STOL (short takeoff and landing), VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing), and supersonic aircraft have been adopted. These new technologies have made vehicles quieter. Passenger travel has improved in speed and comfort. Freight transport costs less because larger vehicles are used and operating efficiency has increased. The computer is used for record keeping, traffic control, navigation, and other routine operations.

In the more distant future, rocket transportation may become feasible, perhaps in combination with orbiting satellites, enabling all points on Earth to be connected in less than an hour’s travel time. Underground gravity vacuum tubes may permit freight and passengers to travel between stations thousands of miles apart also in less than an hour.

Improvements may be expected in transportation management techniques. Some forms of transportation now under private ownership, management, and operation will increasingly depend on public financing or control, just as urban mass transit now does. Some forms of transportation will be integrated into multimodal organizations, both public and private, in order to move people and goods with a minimum of cost, inconvenience, and delay.

The need for modes of transportation will endure. Innovative communications systems, however, have already made much travel unnecessary. Teleconferencing enables people to hold meetings and see each other without having to travel. Computer networking makes cooperative work possible, without the workers leaving home or office ( see telecommunication ).

Additional Reading

Ancona, George. Freighters: Cargo Ships and the People Who Work Them (Crowell Junior Books, 1985). Ardley, Neil. Air and Flight (Watts, 1984). Barner, Bob. Elevator Escalator Book: A Transportation Fact Book (Doubleday, 1990). Brandt, Keith. Transportation (Troll, 1985). Brown, Richard. One Hundred Words About Transportation (Harcourt, 1989). Gakken Company Limited Editors. Wheels and Wings (Time-Life, 1988). Kerrod, Robin and others. Land (Silver Burdett, 1984). Kerrod, Robin and others. Water (Silver Burdett, 1985). Little, Karen. Wings, Wheels and Water (EDC Publishers, 1988). Williams, Brenda and Williams, Brian. Wings, Wheels and Sails (Random, 1991). Arnold, James. All Drawn by Horses (David & Charles, 1985). Bulliet, Richard. The Camel and the Wheel (Columbia Univ. Press, 1990). Bushell, C.J. Jane’s Urban Transport Systems (Jane’s Information Corporation, 1990). Cain, Wilma. Story of Transportation (Gateway Press, Inc., 1988). Evans, A.N. The Automobile (Lerner, 1985). Fargo, O.J. Western Transportation (Green Valley World, 1990). Graham, Ian. Transportation (Watts, 1990). Lowe, Marcia. Alternatives to the Automobile (Worldwatch Institute, 1990). Nentl, J.A. Big Rigs (Crestwood, 1983). Norris, Ann. On the Go (Lothrop, 1990). Papageorgiou, M.N. Concise Encyclopedia of Traffic and Transportation Systems (Pergamon, 1991). Pollard, Michael. From Cycle to Spaceship: The Story of Transportation (FOF, 1987). Radford, Don. Looking at Flight (David & Charles, 1984). Schulz, Marjorie. Transport: Careers for Today (Watts, 1990). Stein, Barbara. Kids’ World Almanac of Transportation: Rockets, Planes, Trains, Cars, Boats, and Other Ways to Travel (Pharos Books, 1991). Wilkins, Frances. Transport and Travel from Nineteen Thirty to the Nineteen Eighty’s (David & Charles, 1985).

(See also bibliographies for Airplane ; Automobile .)

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Essay On Modes Of Transport

Recently, transport has cause significant detrimental effects on the built and natural environment, and hence on individual’s lives. It also contributes significantly to global warming. The environmental aspects of transport sustainability are concerned with atmospheric and noise pollution, land takes, resource use, the effects of waste disposal on the natural environment. The largest impacts come from transport use, but the effects from development and construction of infrastructure and vehicles, as well as the waste from their disposal, add to the environmental costs of transport. In general, transport makes travelling much more convenient as it brings people to certain places at certain times but this is not what this research paper is about. This research paper is about the devastating effects that it causes to the local and global environment. It is essential to find out more about the concept of transportation and its overwhelming effects on the local and global environments This essay will aim to outline the three modes of transport and how it effects the local and global environment in my country. Land transport, mainly cars and buses as it has one of the most overwhelming effects on the local environment here. …show more content…

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Essay on Public Transportation

Students are often asked to write an essay on Public Transportation in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Public Transportation

Introduction.

Public transportation refers to vehicles like buses and trains, used by the public to travel. It is a shared system, meaning it carries multiple passengers at once.

Public transportation is important because it helps decrease traffic congestion. It also reduces air pollution by lessening the number of cars on the road.

Using public transportation can save money as it’s cheaper than maintaining a car. It also promotes social interaction and provides mobility to those who can’t drive.

In conclusion, public transportation is beneficial for the environment, economy, and society. Therefore, we should consider using it more frequently.

250 Words Essay on Public Transportation

Role in urban mobility.

Public transportation plays a pivotal role in facilitating urban mobility. It reduces congestion by transporting a larger number of people in a single vehicle, compared to private cars. This efficiency aids in reducing travel time, enhancing productivity, and improving the overall quality of life for citizens.

Economic Impact

Public transportation is a significant economic driver. It creates job opportunities, both directly and indirectly, and stimulates local economies by enhancing accessibility to businesses. It also plays a crucial role in reducing the economic burden of transportation for individuals, particularly those from lower-income groups.

Environmental Implications

Public transportation contributes to environmental sustainability by reducing the carbon footprint. It minimizes the number of vehicles on the road, leading to lower emissions and reduced energy consumption. It also aids in mitigating climate change by fostering a transition towards a low-carbon urban transport system.

Social Equity

Public transportation promotes social equity by providing affordable and accessible transportation options to all, irrespective of socio-economic status. It ensures that everyone can access essential services, job opportunities, and social activities, thereby reducing social exclusion.

In conclusion, public transportation is a cornerstone of sustainable urban development. It is instrumental in promoting economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social equity. Therefore, investing in public transportation is not just a matter of urban policy, but a key to achieving sustainable and inclusive cities.

500 Words Essay on Public Transportation

The role of public transportation.

Public transportation serves as the backbone of urban mobility, providing a sustainable alternative to private vehicle use. It mitigates the environmental impact of transport by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Public transit systems like buses, trams, and metros are designed to accommodate large passenger volumes, thereby decreasing the number of vehicles on the road and reducing traffic congestion.

Moreover, public transportation fosters social inclusion. It provides access to employment, education, healthcare, and recreational activities for all segments of the population, including low-income groups, the elderly, and people with disabilities. By offering a reliable and affordable means of travel, public transportation can bridge socio-economic disparities and facilitate social cohesion.

Challenges in Public Transportation

Funding issues are another significant hurdle. Public transportation is often heavily subsidized, relying on government funding to maintain operations. However, budget constraints can limit the capacity for system improvements and expansions.

Lastly, a lack of integrated planning can lead to inefficient transit systems. To maximize efficiency and user convenience, public transportation should be coordinated with other urban services such as housing, land use, and pedestrian infrastructure.

The Future of Public Transportation

Furthermore, the integration of public transportation with other modes of travel, such as bike-sharing and ride-hailing services, can create a seamless and flexible mobility network. This concept, known as Mobility as a Service (MaaS), represents a paradigm shift in urban transport, moving from vehicle ownership to shared mobility.

Sustainability is another key aspect of the future of public transportation. As cities strive to achieve carbon neutrality, electric buses, hydrogen-powered trains, and other forms of green public transit will play a crucial role in reducing transport-related emissions.

Public transportation is more than just a means of getting from one place to another. It is a tool for urban development, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Despite the challenges it faces, with proper planning, sufficient funding, and the integration of advanced technologies, public transportation can continue to serve as a vital component of urban life, shaping our cities for the better.

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Modes of Transport Essay

Document Type : Thesis

Subject Area : Engineering

Such transportation methods can accommodate heavier commodities thus making them a suitable choice compared to air transport. Various means of transport are used for various transportation modes. At times we use more than one means of transport to travel from point to another (Gerondeau, 3). For instance, when travelling from point A to Point B; a person can use water, air, or land transport by boarding on a number of means of transport. Examples of means of transport used in each mode of transport include Air-helicopter, aircraft; road-bus, car, Uber/tax, walking, bicycle, truck, car; water-tanker, boats, ferry, container ship; and rail-train, maglev, light rail, and tram. One can watch, read the landscapes, contemplate, design about things in life or enjoy a train picnic with friends or family. Trains are safe for those passengers whose safety is guaranteed.

Railways are in most cases the safest form of transport in terms of breakdowns and accidents. Finally, trains are best for passengers who want to get value for money ("TOP 10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Train Travel, 4"). Many Asian and European countries have best railway system. It is the best means to use in cases where fast moving consumer products need to be transported. For instance, the parts required to repair the broken equipment important for business operation may be needed at exactly 9 pm and its 3 pm. So as to avoid huge losses that may be caused due to delays, air freight services may be used to transmit the parts within the shortest time possible. Airplanes also prove useful when customs fees matters. A sea transport appears to be the cheapest of the available freight services for a Start-up Company with a small production run and faces the pressure to deliver commodities overseas.

Sea transport is also suitable when ferrying huge and heavy commodities such as timber and coal to distant places. Furthermore, sea and inland transport is suitable when carrying a huge volume of goods due to its huge capacity ("Water Transport: Kinds, Advantages and Disadvantages of Water Transport, 3"). Finally, road transport may involve travel by buses, cars, walking, and bicycles. The selection of each type of transport depends on various factors and situations (Verhoef, 273). Buses are cheap when travelling long distances. With buses, you might not get to the exact location but you will be dropped to the nearest place ("Travelling by Car ? Advantages and Disadvantages, 1"). Private cars are considerably faster especially during rush hours compared to bus travel. Cars are useful for passengers with several items or have heavy luggage to carry.

In terms of safety, cars are the best compared to other public means where pickpocketing is prevalent. Cars are quite comfortable compared to buses. They can operate in places no bus or car can access. In a condition where a motorcycle cannot pass, they can be picked up and carried. It is cheap as it only requires food and water for the rider as well as fuel for the engine which is a bit cheaper compared to the automobile. They afford mobility for those that may not afford the car (Goetz, 2). In conclusion, modes of transport refer to the means through which freight and passengers move from one place to another. Share and Discover Knowledge on LinkedIn SlideShare, 25 May 2015, www. slideshare. net/MariusDumitrache/travelling-by-car-48558061. Water Transport: Kinds, Advantages and Disadvantages of Water Transport.

Your Article Library, 18 Sept. asp. Janic, Milan. Air transport system analysis and modelling. CRC Press, 2014. Verhoef, Erik.

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Land Transport – History, Evolution, and Development Essay

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Can you imagine how far humanity got with the historical and technological advancements of land transportation? Check out our essay example to discover the early forms of land transportation, such as horses and carriages, and learn about the invention of the steam engine and the internal combustion engine. An emphasis is made on the impact of the intense use of automobiles on society and the environment, as well as current developments in the field of electric and autonomous vehicles. Additionally, the author touches on the future of land transport, including potential advancements in sustainable technologies.

Introduction

Land Transportation Negative Effects

Vehicles with Less Emissions
How to Lessen the Traffic
The Case of the UAE – Dubai Metro

Introduction. History of Land Transportation

Land transportation has evolved throughout the human history. It started from simple strides, taming wild horses and invention of the wheel. History puts it that the initial invention of man-made transportation occurred in the Mesopotamia or Asia. This was the time when man invented the wheel at around 4000-3500 BC (Bardou, Jean-Pierre et al, 1982). The combination of the horse and the wheel made transportation system simple as it facilitated exchange of crops. It eventually led to mass movement of people and goods, and the wheel became advanced means of land transportation.

The use of the wheel eventually led to chariots. Sumerians were the first men to first experience wheel transportation. Chariot had the ability to enhance the speed of movement. Man soon invented a four-wheeled cart that improved efficiency in movement.

There were significant improvements in land transportation as automation development took place through steam engine. This was the origin of movement of a large number of people in the 18 th century (Bardou et al, 1982). However, the locomotive steam engine was slow and majorities considered it unsafe. Man soon invented locomotive steam engines. They had the power to drag many cars. This was an obvious improvement in the land transportation development.

As time progressed, man advanced the development of the locomotive system. This resulted into improved speed and safe travel than earlier attempts. The period of the World War II marked the introduction of a diesel-powered engine. Initially man had attempted to power trains through electricity as early as 1895. However, lack of efficiency made that discovery unreliable and expensive invention. Soon, the development in subway led to dependence on electricity as the method of underground movements.

Some studies suggest that there were attempts to “use steam engine in the East during the period of 800 BC” (Bardou et al, 1982). However, man limited this discovery to personal travel and not mass movement of people.

The period of 1860 marked a milestone in the development of land transportation. This was the time when Lenoir Jean Etienne of France made an engine powered by gas. Since then, there are advancements in land transport. Automobile discovery remains significant development since the period of the wheel. Automotive is responsible for distance traveling, rise of suburbs, and mass movements of people and goods at increased speeds (Davies, 1992).

Road Congestion

Road congestion results from increased use of the road network which results into increased time of traveling. Road congestion occurs due increased usages of vehicles and urban development. Road congestion has peak and off-peak hours. Occasionally, some factors may result into road congestion. These are mainly “unpredictable accidents, incidents, road works, severe weather conditions, or some major public events, and emergency cases” (Harry and Chang-Hee, 2008). In addition, other causes of road congestion can result from different approaches to control traffic flow such as junctions, signage, and traffic lights. These factors may influence the flow of traffic significantly.

Kerner Boris attempts to explain causes of road congestion using a mathematical approach. He talks of freeway traffic to explain causes of road congestion. This highlights that a traffic can either be in a state of “a free-flow condition, or in a congested condition” (Kerner, 2004). Congestion in traffic can still have a free-flow but heavy traffic. Conversely, there can also be wide-moving jams where traffic flow is generally slow. Such theoretical approaches to explaining causes of traffic help in designing less congested roads in urban development (Kerner, 2004).

There are several factors responsible for road congestion. Some studies have classified causes of road congestion in their own ways depending on the field. For instance, economists, road engineers and authorities may look at recurrent causes of road congestion. On the other hand, other specialist may look at both recurrent and none recurrent causes of road congestion (Kerner, 2004).

Studies in America about causes of road congestion established that 25 percent of causes of road congestion were mainly accident and incident related. About 15 percent of road congestion was as a result of bad weather. In addition, 10 percent occurred due to maintenance of roads. Emergencies, poor timing of traffic signals, and special events were responsible for five percent of road congestion. Recurrent causes of road congestion accounted for 40 percent. These were incapability and insufficiencies of the existing infrastructures.

Recurrent causes of road congestion due to insufficient capacity depend on the existing road networks. Limited capacity of urban roads implies that such existing road networks can no longer accommodate growing demands as a result of many private vehicles. There has also been growing purchases of private vehicles as many people improve their economic statuses. Such changes in commuter behaviors have resulted into unrestrained demand for roads among commuters in city suburbs. There are also cases where traffic management systems are ineffective, lack of sufficient knowledge, poor placement, out of order, or lack proper timing.

There are general factors responsible for traffic snarl-ups in cities. Time of usage is similar across most cities. Majorities living in the city suburbs have morning and evening schedules for attending workplaces, schools and other places. Thus, most commuters need to get to their destinations almost at the same time. This implies that the demand for transport is high as certain period of the day than others.

Population increase is also a factor that has led to road congestion. Road infrastructures need to support the ever growing populations. Over time, such infrastructures reach their limits where even expansion is not possible. In addition, majorities occupy city suburbs where they need to commute to cities or other places for various reasons almost on a daily basis.

Over the past few decades, levels of household incomes have grown significantly. This implies that there is money to commute to places. Most people opt for comfort and safety of their own cars. Consequently, they do not rely on public transportation systems but rather their own cars. This increases the demand for road networks and carrying capacities.

Most people also blame traffic snarl-ups on poor urban planning. There are emerging settlements away from the cities to support the growing populations. City planners must contend with such challenges. Some areas lack public transport systems, such as areas of high income individuals, new settlements, and low populated areas. Such people may resort to personal means of transportation. These are contributing factors to road congestions in major cities of the world (Stover and Frank, 1988).

Traffic congestion has severe impacts in terms of losses, accidents, rage, pollution, and increased maintenance costs. Most people spend a lot of time in traffic during peak hours. This increases frustration levels among commuters and lost opportunities and work hours. Time lost in traffic jams influences income levels of individuals and economy in general. Most countries calculate the hours people spend in traffic snarl-ups and translate them into monetary values.

Time lost in traffic also have effects on fuel consumptions. As a result, some people opt to relocate their businesses or switch their jobs or places of residence in order to save time for use during the day. Traffic snarl-ups also affect choices of social amenities. For instance, most people would like neighborhood schools, close shopping centers and places of work. Physical distances affect choices of such facilities and individuals’ social life schedules. However, critics and town authorities maintain that people are responsible for road congestions due to their choices of lifestyle such as the choice of residential place, mode of transportation, and avoidance of public means.

Road congestions also results into economic and productivity losses. People suffer increased commuter prices due to long hours in traffic snarl-ups. In addition, individuals, organizations, and business entities suffer losses due to traffic congestions as people spend productivities hours in the jam. Consequently, there are persistent loss of opportunities, increasing costs of running business, pollution and rates of accident (Link et al, 1999). These factors affect individuals in terms increased taxes, prices of commodities, and health.

There are countries that have reached the peak of traffic snarl-ups. To this end, road congestion has become a threat to countries’ economic developments. Governments have purely based such claims on road congestion alone. Consequently, road congestion has prompted governments to act immediately so as to avoid the negative impacts of road congestion on the economy. In some case, reliance on private cars as means of transport is no longer attractive due charges and taxes that come with them. Such economic impacts have forced most governments to upgrade their urban transport systems to the world-class status, introduce transport management systems, construct freeways, expand train systems, and promote the use of public transportation systems.

Road congestion is also responsible for growing cases of road carnage and incidents. Studies base this observation on the idea that an “increase in traffic volume will increase the rate of road accidents and incidents” (Winston and Langer, 2006). Most records show that cases of road accidents and incidents are common during rush hours. In addition, there are instances of reduced visibility during morning and evening hours or strong sun’s rays that affect drivers’ visibility. Such cases are responsible for increased road accidents. Still, some drivers suffer fatigue or lose concentration due to long hours in traffic jams and working hours have increased the rate of road accidents. Cases of careless driving or driving while drunk have increased the rate of road accidents globally. We may attribute the main cause of growing rates of road accidents to increasing numbers of vehicles on the roads. To this end, we must remember that road accidents and incidents themselves are also contributing factors in road congestion. This is a case of cause and effect relations in road usages.

Road congestion leads to decreased lifetime of the road surface. Road layers have the elasticity so as to support the weight of different types of vehicles using them. Vehicles cause massive deflection of the road surfaces when they are standstill, moving slowly, or when their numbers are high. Over time, the road surface losses its elasticity as top layers become lesser effective. This results into frequent maintenance than expected (Winston and Langer, 2006). Most roads have 25 years of life expectancy with scheduled maintenance of three times for the top layers. Still, areas of high traffic experience early drops in quality of the road than expected.

Costs of vehicles maintenance are high in areas of heavy traffic. Traffic congestion is not ideal for high speed modern vehicles. Thus, sudden acceleration and brakes have negative effects on the vehicle engines. Engines run even if the vehicles are in traffic despite the fact that no movements take place. This calls for frequent servicing of vehicles even above the manufacturers’ recommendations. Maintenance costs also take into account wear and tear of vehicle parts such as brakes and clutch as their usages increase with acceleration and sudden brakes.

Psychologists observe that among the main causes of road rage occur as a result of frustrations due to traffic snarl-ups. The main culprits are people of predisposed outbursts personalities who may take such frustrations to strangers in order to vent their anger. They tend to change lanes frequently or follow other motorists closely.

Air & Noise Pollution

Increase in road congestion and pollution goes beyond air pollution alone. There is also noise pollution that environmentalists find as an emerging source of concern. There are exhaust emissions that are responsible for the rising quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This takes place when vehicles are idle, but the engines are “in motion, sudden accelerating and braking within short distances” (Kerner, 2004). The issue of global warming has shifted focus from main industries to transportation system as significant contributors in emissions of greenhouse gases through combustion of fuels. As a result, vehicles manufacturers enhance technology in new vehicles to reduce emission of CO 2 and improve fuel efficiency.

The main sources of noise pollution mainly come from hooting, roaring vehicles engines, and radio and music systems in vehicles. The noise reaches the recipient through the normal transmission mode of air to ears. Noise levels depend on different factors such as “humidity, ambient temperature, air pressure, vehicle type, and the grade of the road surface” (Link et al, 1999). These factors are part of any road. However, slow movements of vehicles increase the level of noise as road congestion tends to concentrate such noise pollution in busy roads. Thus, noise pollution forms a part of concern for road users.

New Vehicles with Less CO2 Emissions

Most industry studies indicate that enhanced vehicle fuel efficiency has resulted into a drop of CO 2 emissions. According to Motor Industry Association (MIA), the National Average Carbon Emission (NACE) for new vehicles of 2011 had a figure of CO 2 emission below 200 grams to 197.1 grams for the first time (Motor Industry Association, 2012). This represented a drop of 2.3 percent from the previous year.

The effort among to reduce CO 2 emission among vehicle manufacturers started more than five years ago. The average drop of CO 2 emission has been 10 percent. Most new passenger vehicles form part of this calculation. Thus, the figures presented are representative in calculating the CO 2 measures. The drop is due to enhanced vehicles technology among main manufacturers in the world. The main is to meet CO 2 emissions in target markets that include the US, Europe, Australia, and other emerging economies. Consumers have also changed their purchasing habits to march the environmental requirements. This has improved due to government subsidies, especially in Europe where the government facilitate the purchase of environmental friendly cars by subsidizing the costs.

Most of these achievements are as a result of carbon trading scheme that aims at reducing the quantity of CO 2 in the atmosphere. The target has been on the transport sector for long-term agenda on reduction. These achievements from new vehicles show that manufacturers of motor vehicles are playing their roles of combating environmental degradation, reducing greenhouse emission, and pollutions from motor vehicles. Such efforts do not involve government interventions or regulations but are rather technological breakthroughs in vehicle manufacturing.

Ways to Lessen the Land Transportation Traffic

Developments in land transport have created issues of traffic in most urban centers. Every year, cases of road congestion increase as more vehicles use roads. Thus, such issues have led concerned individuals to look for alternative means of combating road congestion. Approaches to alleviate road traffic include improved public transport, charges and taxes, urban planning and development, and pool vehicles programs.

Developing public transit system is the basic approach to combating road congestion. This should include improving public access to public vehicles by creating new routes, and investing in efficient and safe vehicles such as subway lines, speedy trains, and modern public buses. These are basic methods of managing transport in urban cities.

Governments can also introduce charges and taxes to combat road congestion. This is the case in London whereby car owners pay charges to access central routes in the city and pay parking fees too. Such charges aim at making use of personal cars lesser attractive. Consequently, people will resort to public modes transport (Harry and Chang-Hee, 2008).

Urban traffic also results from poor planning. Most families tend to move to urban suburbs and commute either with personal vehicles or public means of transport to workplaces. Consequently, road congestion spread throughout the main routes. The fundamental aim is to focus on renewing urban planning, improving existing infrastructure, and reducing activities at the metropolis.

There are also car pool lanes in efforts to reduce road traffic jams. This initiative targets commuters to metropolises. In addition, commuters who use same routes can have ride sharing initiatives (Bonsall, 2002). This can work among government institutions, schools, universities, and other large organizations.

How to Improve the Land Transportation and Encourage the Use of Public Transportation – The Case of UAE

Dubai is a pioneer in developing the most extensive road network in the UAE. Thus, other emirates can learn from it. Dubai has been experiencing transport challenges until the year 2005. These were mainly road congestion, growing ownership of private vehicles, increased road accidents and deaths, low use of public transport systems, and heavy noise and air pollution. The country estimated that it losses roughly “AED 4.6 billion annually due to road congestion” (Chaudhry, 2012).

The government of Dubai was aiming at maintaining the growing economy through enhancing its road network, and acting as a role model for the UAE region. Consequently, the government created Roads Transport Authority (RTA) to handle issues of land transport.

The main approach involved improving the road network. The points of concentration were increasing capacity of the roads and reducing delays at the junctions. Specifically, RTA focused on enlarging the existing road networks, developing new roads, establishing ring roads at strategic developments, and establishing free flow junctions” (Chaudhry, 2012). These efforts have reduced commuting time for the public through reduction of road congestion. There are also bridges to reduce reliance on existing bridges and tunnels. These initiatives have both social and economic advantages to the public.

RTA also focuses on introducing policies to encourage “the use of public transport and eliminate the use of private cars, and make the best use of the available land transport facilities” (Eriksson, Garvill and Nordlund, 2008). The usages of policies have been effective in other places such as in the EU zone. However, policies can only be effective when planned and implemented well in order to enhance public acceptability. This is true in cases where change of behavior is mandatory. RTA can use push and pull measures to encourage the use of public transport systems. Successful approaches would involve increased tax and charges, and at the same time, providing alternative means of public transportation. This should come as a policy package.

RTA has also focused on public education through Mobility Management Plan, which covers international best practices on land transportation, enhancing the use of available facilities, and reducing time consumed in the traffic jam.

In UAE, the RTA of Dubai aims at developing integrated public transportation system (Chaudhry, 2012). This is the Dubai Metro project and road network for buses. Consequently, the public has begun to notice benefits of such initiatives. The integrated infrastructure aims at combining tram lines with road networks in order to increase access for the public.

The RTA has an ambitious plan of integrating the public transportation systems by creating many stations for different modes of transportation. This aims at enabling ease of transfers for commuters among “buses, water transport, and taxis” (Chaudhry, 2012).

According to Santos and associates, the RTA is working on a program of Transit Oriented Developments (TODs) (Santos, Behrendt and Teytelboym, 2010). The program aims at creating a coordinated urban planning that covers road networks for efficient and safe accessibility among the public. This is to address the needs for sustainable means of transport for the public in city suburbs.

Road transport has come a long way. The invention of the wheel and automotive engine changed revolutionized the way people and goods movement. Modern modes of land transport have their challenges. It is this challenges that men are trying to address in order to increase efficiency of land transport. The focus is mainly on road transport. This leads us to reflect on what lies ahead for land transport, future vehicles, environmental pollutions, congestion, and development plans for both transport systems and urban use.

Some observers believe that futures cars shall be fuel efficient. They shall depend on technological innovation for ensuring that they are free of CO 2 emission. Technology shall assist vehicles recognize different traffic signals, road signage, and other vehicles.

Still, some say that future transport shall utilize technology in every possible aspect. There are cases that vehicles of the future shall warn of bad weather and inform the occupant of possible collisions. In addition, such vehicles will let the drivers know if they are out of their lanes or fatigued. Differences in such cars will enhance driving experiences due to transformation from what is available today.

Further, there shall be a shift from petroleum cars to electric and hydrogen fuel cells powered cars. Such sources of car energy shall lead to low pollution of the environment because such fuels do not emit any CO 2 or pollutants.

Another area of focus shall be on land transport planning and development. The focus shall be on building secure and safe roads or land transport system that aims at serving every member of society. Focus on sustainability of land shall remain a key element on developing efficient land transport. In addition, any future developments of land transport will strive to create a link with other means of transport. Such developments shall take into account the environmental impacts of such developing road infrastructures.

Most countries shall put their priorities in building super highways, complex road networks, and enhanced road safety through education, facilities, and increased accessibility to the masses as the case of Dubai Metro. There shall be a well developed urban land transport information system, and the public shall rely on the public transport than on personal cars due to enhanced efficiency.

Governments shall increase their involvement in the development of land transport system. The main focus shall be on continuous investments through construction of new road networks or upgrading the existing ones. Future development in land transport shall attract private sector participation.

Further, the government shall develop policies to reduce the use of personal cars and allow road users use existing infrastructure wisely. The focus shall be on enhancing public access to such transport facilities. Such policies may aim at introducing taxes to make use of personal cars lesser attractive. In addition, there shall also be pull measures that strive to create many alternatives for the use of personal cars. They can achieve this by enhancing public transport and transport infrastructure. These efforts shall aim at creating the best international practices on land transport and reduce road congestion, at the same time, reduce environmental pollution from too many vehicles.

Bardou, J. et al. (1982). The Automobile Revolution: The Impact of an Industry. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill.

Bonsall, P. (2002). Car share and car clubs: Potential impacts. Leeds: Institute for Transport Studies.

Chaudhry, A. G. (2012). Evolution of the transportation system in Dubai. Network Industries Quarterly, 14 (1), 7-1.

Davies, E. (1992). Transport: On Land, Road & Rail. London: Franklin Watts.

Eriksson, L., Garvill, J., and Nordlund, A.M. (2008). Acceptability of single and combined transport policy measures: the importance of environmental and policy specific beliefs. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 42 (8), 1117-1128.

Harry, W. R. and Chang-Hee, C. B. (2008). Road Congestion Pricing in Europe. Implications for the United States. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.

Kerner, B. S. (2004). The Physics of Traffic: Empirical Freeway Pattern Features, Engineering Applications, and Theory. Berlin: Springer.

Link, H. et al. (1999). The Costs of Road Infrastructure and Congestion in Europe (Contributions to Economics). Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag HD.

Motor Industry Association. (2012). New Vehicle CO2 Emissions Continue Reducing. New Zealand: MIA.

Santos, G., Behrendt, H., and Teytelboym, A. (2010). Part II: Policy instruments for sustainable road transport. Research in Transportation Economics, 28 , 46-91.

Stover, G. and Frank J. (1988). The Impact of Various Land Use Strategies on Suburban Mobility. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs.

Winston, C. and Langer, A. (2006). The effect of government highway spending on road users’ congestion costs. Journal of Urban Economics, 1 (1), 1-20.

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Selection of Helicopter Bases and Transport Modes to Minimize Pre-Hospital Times in Iceland

31 Pages Posted: 28 Aug 2024

Phuong Nguyen

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta

Sveinbjörn Dúason

University of Akureyri

Björn Gunnarsson

Armann ingolfsson.

Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta; University of Alberta - Department of Accounting, Operations & Information Systems

Date Written: August 26, 2024

Models for the optimal location of ambulance bases typically focus on response time, but for some patients (e.g., trauma), the total pre-hospital time may matter more than the response time. Iceland’s geography and population distribution imply that fixed-wing air ambulances are an important mode for transporting emergency patients to one of the small number of hospitals with capabilities to treat patients with time-sensitive conditions. Helicopter ambulances have the potential to improve service for incidents that occur far from the closest airport. We formulate a model to maximize the proportion of patients that reach hospital within a set time standard. The model includes three transport modes (ground, fixed-wing, and helicopter), and incorporates the addition of new helicopter bases to a single existing fixed-wing base and multiple existing ground ambulance bases. We discuss the model implementation and validation, and the potential for its continued use to support strategic and operational decisions.

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Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta ( email )

University of akureyri ( email ), armann ingolfsson (contact author).

11211 Saskatchewan Dr NW Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6 Canada

University of Alberta - Department of Accounting, Operations & Information Systems ( email )

Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6 Canada

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