Definition of modes of transportation
The way through which the traffic or goods can be carried which could give maximum flexibility of services from origin to destination maintaining safe, rapid, and economically condition is known as modes of transportation.
Basic media for modes of transportation:
(a) Land
(b) Water
(c) Air
The land has given scope for development of transportation by roads and railways.
Water and air media are used for waterway transportation and airway transportation respectively.
The roads or the highways, city streets, feeder roads, and village roads, has given scope for a wide range of road vehicles and the pedestrians.
Railways are developed each for long distance transportation of products and passengers and conjointly for urban travel.
The transportation through ocean, river, canal and large lakes by the help of ships and boats is known as waterway. Here water is media for transportation.
The airways help in faster transportation by aircraft and carriers. Besides this, there are other modes of transportation include pipelines, elevators, belt conveyors, cable cars, and aerial rope-ways. The transportation of substances like fluid i.e oil, water, gas, etc from one place to another place are carried by the help of Pipelines.
Different modes of transportation
1) Road Transportation:-
The branch of transportation engineering that deals with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of roadway facilities is termed Road Engineering or Highway Engineering.
Among all types of the transportation road system is an only mode which could give maximum flexibility of service to reach from one place to the desired location.
Various classes of vehicles such as a car, bus, truck, two- wheeler, etc. may be permitted to make use of the roads. Apart from the road vehicles, pedestrians also make use of the facilities of the road system.
Road transport mode has the maximum flexibility for travel with reference to choice of the route, direction, time and speed of travel.
Road transportation is the only mode that caters to the movement of passengers and goods independently right from the place of origin up to the destination of any trip along with the land. In other words, it is possible to provide a door to door service only by road transport.
The other three modes of transportation i.e railways, waterways and airways have to depend on transportation by road to initiate and finish the journey.
Therefore road network is essential to serve as a feeder system for all other modes of transportation and also to supplement them.
Thus it is necessary to develop a well-planned road network throughout the country so as to serve both as an independent transport system and also as feeder transport for the other three modes of transportation.
The limitations of road transport are that the rate of petroleum energy consumed for transportation of unit weight by unit distance) is higher than for transportation by railways and waterways.
The rate of emission of pollutants is also higher than the other modes of transport.
From the point of view of conservation of energy in the country and minimizing the air pollution due to transportation, it is desirable to work out and implement a national policy on coordination between various modes of transportation.
it may be necessary to permit a to keep clean and healthy environment competition between the different modes of transportation.
Advantages of Road transportation
1) Large influential area.
2) Low capital investment required.
3) Door to door service
4) Flexibility in service, road users has the freedom to transfer the vehicles from one lane to another or from one road to another as per requirement.
5) Economic modes of transportation and are also essential for the economic development of a country.
6) It can serve as a feeder line for other modes of transport.
7) Have a very high potential for employment & help to solve the unemployment problem.
8) Safety is high as road accident has a less disastrous effect than that of railway or airways accident.
9) Movements railways on roads are not time-bound, as in case of airways
Disadvantages of the Road Transportation
1) Safety: It has a poor record of safety.
2) Moreland coverage, destroy forest and agricultural land
3) Environmental pollution
4) Energy consumption: It consumes to be imported large fuel which needs Parking: In road, transport parking is already a big problem.
2) Rail Transportation
The concept of rail transportation is movement of multiple wagons or a train of wagons or passenger bogies fitted with steel wheels running over two parallel steel rails of the railway track.
The resistance to traction along the railway track for the movement of the steel wheels of the rail wagons is much lower than that along the more uneven road surface for the movement of road vehicles with rubber tires, under identical conditions of speed and atmospheric factors.
The energy requirement to haul unit load through unit distance by the railway is only a fraction (one fourth to one sixth) of that required by road.
Therefore the full advantage of rail transportation should be taken for the transportation of bulk goods and passengers, especially for a long distance on land routes and where the railway tracks are available.
Railway transportation between the railway stations could be economical and advantageous both for the passengers and also for the transportation of goods on long haul distances.
The railways can transport a large number of passengers or a large number of goods at a time.
The railways also serve as mass rapid transport for the commuters to travel from the suburban areas to the urban centers and for travel within the urban area of large cities.
The branch of transportation engineering which deals with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of the railway track, rail stations and the yards including the control system and safety devices is called Railway Engineering.
Different types of locomotives with steam or diesel engines or electric locomotives along the electrified railway tracks have been used all over the world to haul the trains.
The transportation to and from the railway stations are to be performed by road transportation. passengers and goods on land routes at relatively low cost and the roads could serve as a feeder system for transportation to the interior parts and to the intermediate localities between the railway stations.
Therefore in order to conserve energy, an integrated rail- cum-road transport network could be advantageous in a developing country like Nepal and India.
3) Water Transportation
Transportation by water offers minimum resistance to traction and therefore needs minimum energy to haul unit load through unit distance.
The amount of energy required to propel a vessel on the water is much lesser than that required on land and is far lesser than that required to keep an aircraft airborne.
Therefore water transportation is the most energy efficient. But, water transportation is very slow, which is the greatest disadvantage of this mode.
In fact, this is the slowest among the four modes. Though some passenger traffic makes use of water transportation, the greatest user of this mode is a bulk cargo of relatively low value, mainly because of the slow speed and low transportation cost for the bulk cargo.
The waterway is needed to operate the ships and boats on sea routes between the harbors and ports. quays, wharves, etc.
The other facilities required are to provide shelter to the ships and the crews and also facilities for loading, unloading, and storage of cargo and for carrying out routine and major maintenance of the vessels.
Transportation engineering which deals with the planning, design, construction and maintenance of docks and harbors is called Harbour Engineering.
Harbors are terminals built with components such as docks, The branch of Inland water transportation is made possible along the rivers, canals, and lakes by boat and ferry service, which operate between small ports.
Inland waterways, being of relatively shallow depth, the freight is mostly carried on barges and are hauled by towing boats The road and rail transport serves as a feeder system to transfer goods and passengers to and from the harbors and ports.
4) Air Transportation
Transportation by air is the fastest among the four modes. Air transport provides more comfortable and fast travel resulting in substantial saving in travel time for the passengers between the airports.
Unlike other modes of transport, air transport allows continuous journey over the land and water, even across inaccessible places in between two the overall operating expenses for air transportation are the highest in comparison to the other modes.
Another limitation is that the operation of air transport is very much long hauls is on airports. One of the limitations is that the energy required and affected by weather conditions such as severe storms and thick fog developed to provide facilities for the aircraft for take-off, landing, out maintenance works.
Some of the essential components of an Airports parking and carrying airport are a runway, taxiway, terminal facilities, visual aid, control, and safety system.
The branch of transportation engineering which deals with the planning, design construction and maintenance of the airports to cater to the needs of the aircraft that expected to make use of these airports is called Airport Engineering.
The airway is For shorter hauls, helicopters take-off. Military aviation is also important to meet the defense needs of a country.
The requirements of military airports could vary depending upon several other factors are used and heliports developed for their landing and are Thus air transportation caters for the movement of passengers and freight between the airports.
The travel to and from airports transportation, particularly by road transportation or by both rail and road transportation. are to be performed by other modes of
5) Others modes of transportation:
Pipelines transport, ropeway, Belt conveyors, etc are also modes of transport. Pipeline transport sends goes through a pipe, mostly liquid and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes can also send solid capsules using compressed air.
Ropeway or cable transport is a broad mode where vehicles are instead of an internal power source. It is most commonly used pulled by cables at steep gradient e.g. Cable car, Tuin, escalator, etc. some of these as conveyer transport. are also categorized
I Hope, you liked my written article on “Different modes of transportation” and remains helpful.
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