Transportation Infrastructure - Research Paper Example

 Transportation Infrastructure Abstract Transportation is one of the most crucial and basic ingredient of all the field of life especially of international trade e.g. shipping, agriculture, food industry, construction, traveling, tourism, and number of other business fields that simply cannot go ahead even a single step without the support of transportation infrastructure. The safe and secure carrying of passengers, speedy deliverance of products, and preservation of quality of different commodities are most important issues for the success of transportation companies. The transportation infrastructure is considered as the backbone of all such activities. Due to this reason, users consult reliable companies which utilize the latest modes of transportation and technologies for efficient delivery. The use of latest technologies has introduced new trends in transportation industry and put certain direct implications on different actors associated with this field (http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/technologys-role-in-moving-people-goods-quicker/). These actors include infrastructure (e.g. roads, highways, bridges, railways, subways, tramways, airports, seaports etc), modes of transportation (e.g. buses, cars, rails, trams, planes, freights etc), and functions pertaining to of transportation industry. Since users keep themselves continuously engage with new innovative services in all facets of life, therefore, by focusing on transportation infrastructure, this paper mainly describes the modern developments in transportation infrastructure and its ultimate impact on different aspects of transportation. Introduction Infrastructure is basically an organized physical structure which is established for a particular operation at government or corporate level. In particular context, the word infrastructure is used for transportation like roads, water supply, and communications etc. in other words, “the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions” (Fulmer, 2009). Similarly transportation infrastructure is an organized structure which is utilized for the shipment of goods, commodities, services and even passengers from one place to another (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/infrastructure). The transportation infrastructure is the sum of all technical instruments and organizations designed to enable persons, commodities, and news to master space. Its form at any given time responds to the complex of human needs, economic, social, cultural, ecclesiastical and political; conversely, it has a vital influence on all human relations. Regardless of the sphere of human activity from which they derive, transportation infrastructure leads to the development of new means of transportation and these in turn stimulate new demands for transportations. This relationship invests the question of the capacity and efficiency of the transportation infrastructure and of its component parts with a social significance unequaled in any other technical field. Standards of transportation infrastructure vary with the diversity of needs, and different values must be ascribed at different times to the technical and operating elements in particular means of transportation as well as in the entire infrastructure (Grübler, 1990). Speed and safety, capacity and cheapness, regularity and dependability, territorial diffusion and special services for different commodities are in general the factors which have regulated the organization of the means of transportation infrastructure through out its development. In broader perspective, the transportation infrastructure is divided with respect to land, water, and air modes. Land-based Transportation Infrastructure Transportation industry is highly dependent on strong infrastructure for its smooth and speedy execution of functions. The invention of wheel is considered to be as one of the greatest and most productive scientific invention which not only accelerated the human life but also called a highway. In US culture, the term highway is associated with only major roads while in British context, highways stand for any road open for general public. Each country has its own national highway systems and national highway infrastructure. Roads and highways are more important than inland waterways. They serve short local stretches and function as feeders for railroads and waterways. In conjunction with automobile, they have recently attained new interregional and international importance. Their great advantage lies in the fact that they are even more adaptable to many terrains than the railroads, and that the highways may be laid even more closely and penetrates into otherwise inaccessible regions. Furthermore, no special expenditures are necessary for ports or terminals for passengers and freight. The continuous scientific progression and era of industrial revolution increased the demand of roads and highways; therefore, a network of highways and road was spread till the middle of 20th century. Road transportation is considered more safe and recognizable and relatively inexpensive than other transportations. But its drawback is that it is much time consuming than other modes of transportations. It is basically the blessing of modern technology which enabled the construction of roads, airports, railways, subways, and trams. Asphalt compactors are used for speedy compaction and finishing of roads (Vehicle Valuation Services, Inc). Not only does this elimination of large special investments reduce the total cost as compared with railroad costs, but the expenses for the roadbed itself and for the laying of rails for street traction lines are generally not as high as in the case of railways. On the other hand, since highway infrastructure is composed of many different elements i.e. pedestrians and various types of vehicles, neither the speed nor the capacity of individual vehicles can be utilized to the technical maximum. Highways infrastructure and the rails laid along them are therefore not built for maximum performance. Lower investment is thus achieved largely at the cost of speed and capacity. In modern scenario, the road and highway infrastructure include tunnels, culverts, bridges, retaining walls, traffic electrical systems, signage and markings, edge treatments (curbs, sidewalks, landscaping), and some other specific installations such as road maintenance depots and rest areas. Railways is one of the most crucial system of land-based transportation infrastructure including its wide structure, train stations, rail yards, level crossings, signaling and communications systems. Mass transit systems e.g. trams, subways, commuter rail systems, trolleys and bus transportation are important and modern modes of transportation. Water-based Transportation Infrastructure Aside from peculiarly specialized transport agencies, such as oil pipe lines, the remaining modern means of transportation like inland waterways, ocean tramps, highways, and airways do little more than fill in gaps and perform special tasks in accordance with territorial and organizational peculiarities. This supplementary character is seen most clearly in the case of ocean tramps. These are individual ships, steamers or sailing vessels, bound by no schedule and limited to no particular part of the sea, which offer to carry freight wherever and whenever the amount awaiting shipment is too great for the regular liners. There are many opportunities all around the world for bulk freight cargoes. Although finer goods are also carried occasionally when speed is not essential, tramp service is important and influences the price levels of liners only with respect to bulk goods. In order to avoid the tolls, generally tramps use the long and more dangerous routes. In the tramp services, sailing vessels still compete with steamers. The use of ships for cargo has a great contribution toward transportation infrastructure. Today by the application of latest freight transportation, the pattern and flow of transportation is more organized, consignment orders are increased and irregular as well, the load per consignment is also less massive, time taking for loading and unloading have been decreased, and freight technology has enough potential to take massive consignments at longer distances. A lot of recent technological advancements have been made with respect to freight transportations infrastructure and thus it has become safe, secure, and expedient. These technological advancements include electronic data interchange (EDI) technologies, container identification systems, automatic vehicle systems, weather radars, navigational systems, mobile information and communication systems, and database management and value-added data manipulation systems, cargo and on-board container status information systems, and advanced traffic information systems (Delaney, 1999). The outcome of installation of this technology is that both air and freight transportations are looking for operational integration. Air-based Transportation Infrastructure Airways, the most rapid means of transportation, are now both safe and regular. Since airports require great level of open spaces and high visibility, they are located outside of cities. As a result, there are always relatively long supplementary transportation infrastructures, so that airplanes are preferable to train only for long distances. A further handicap resulting from these technical airport requirements is the fact that, although airplanes can traverse mountain ranges, they cannot easily have stations in them. The most critical feature is the fact that little room is available on the plane for profitable load in addition to the space occupied by the motors. Although experiments with trains composed of a motive plane and several gliders have been carried out successfully, however, it has not been possible to separate a motive plane from the load career. The possibility of classifying the total air traffic in terms of diverse requirements and of constructing a multiplicity of types of airplanes is also limited. Since these basic facts restrict air travel to the speedy conveyance of passengers and mail as well as of very delicate and perishable goods, the high investment costs for airports and the equally high operating expenses must be borne by a small number of profitable loads. The number in fact too small to permit the cost of individual air transport operations to be brought down to the level of that of other means of transportation, and the factor of speed therefore remains the decisive competitive advantage of air travel. Incurrent scenario, the airports are the main infrastructure of air-based infrastructure. Airports are hub of lots of transportation activities and they consist of complex structures. Its landside areas consist of access roads, parking lots, terminals, and public transportation train stations while airside areas involve runways, parallel taxi tracks, tarmacs, and ramps. On both sides of runways and taxiways, emergency and landing lights are installed to guide the pilots for emergency landing or to land in poor visibility conditions. Cargo and freight department is one of the major operational hubs of airport operations. Along with this infrastructure, airports are facilitated by air traffic control towers and meteorological offices. Air traffic control towers are further equipped with sophisticated instruments with modern navigational and communication aids like PAR (Precision Approach Radar) and ILS (Instrument Landing Systems) while meteorological offices are equipped with latest weather surveillance radars and AWOS (Automated Weather Observation Systems). Recent Advantages In current era of modern science, physical structures of transportation and applications of telecommunication are changing radically and have a substantial impact on social, financial, and cultural life. The production and distribution sectors of business world have been changed radically while on the other side, the world has also observed tremendous changes in geopolitical and financial structures (Marchet et al, 2009). The latest changes have also affected the transportation industry. It has been proved that with the support of latest transportation infrastructure and communications, corporate world is now less dependent on certain geographic locations because both of these fields have proved themselves cost effective and an alternative media. Information technology makes the transportation systems lean, efficient, and productive as the movements can be arranged and monitored, and facilities can be offered in much better way. Presently, the applications of modern transportation infrastructure have revolutionized the world economy. The global recession and applications of moderns transportation infrastructure has forced the companies to go for internationalization, therefore, the companies have focused to apply the latest techniques, machinery, and structure to produce the products which are attractive for diversified markets simultaneously. Although the invention of wheel had created certain dimensions in transportation world, however, it is rightly considered that the invention and use of rail transport was the first media which acted as a real transportation technology and brought a real revolution to this field. It was actually the turning point for international companies to expand their business to some more emerging markets. However, there were certain areas where the railway system couldn’t access. In order to cater the deficiency of inaccessibility of railways, steam engine was introduced that took the local products to those international trade centers where railway had no access. Moreover, cargo ships and airplanes offer to carry the passengers as well as goods between continents within matter of hours. Reservation management is also part of modern transportation operations and infrastructure that can be used in broad perspectives like seat allocation, parking, and times of use, and anything other which can be planned. Conclusion The development of transportation infrastructure involving tremendous capital investment and requiring large traffic volume brought about a fundamental change in the economic organization of transportation. Before the advent of railroads and steamers, the merchant as a general rule furnished and owned his own means of transport. With the increasingly large scale capitalization and capacity of railroads and steamship lines, merchant or shipper ownership declined and thus modern transportation infrastructure started to grow. The significance of the modern transportation infrastructure stands out clearly in the economic interdependence which characterizes all fully developed regions. This can be best described by the world market economy which not only emphasizes the territorial expansion of commodity exchange relations but also the transformation brought about in theses relations by modern means of communication. The new transportation infrastructure has multiplied the cultural and social links which are characteristics of modern life. Thanks to the railroads and air services, intercontinental migrations have become both extensive and regular. In terms of urbanization, role of transportation infrastructure have been instrumental and it has provided an indispensable support in metropolitan transportation facilities. The size of the population which can be unified locally in one community is conditioned of course by the particular habits of life and type of dwelling and consequently varies greatly from place to place. But there always arises at relatively early stage the necessity of providing not only territorial and administrative unity but a genuine communal life. This would be virtually impossible without transportation infrastructure and communication. The separation of residential from business quarters in the modern cities is inconceivable without the modern transportation infrastructure. References Delaney, R. (1999). A Look Back in Anger at Logistics Productivity, 10th Annual State of Logistics Report, Saint Louis, Mo. Fulmer, Jeffrey (2009). What in the world is infrastructure?. PEI Infrastructure Investor (July/August): 30–32 Grübler, A. (1990). The rise and fall of infrastructures: Dynamics of evolution and technological change in transport. Heidelberg and New York: Physica-Verlag Infrastructure, Online Compact Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/infrastructure (accessed January 17, 2009) Marchet, G., Alessandro, P, and Perotti, S. (2009). An explanatory study of ICT adoption in the Italian freight transportation industry, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Italy Vehicle Valuation Services, Inc. (2009). Construction and off road equipment: Quick reference guide. CopRadar.com (1999-2000). Police Traffic Radars. Subsidiary of Sawicki Enterprises. Retrieved July 17, 2009 http://www.copradar.com/preview/chapt1/ch1d1.html Delaney, R. (1999). A Look Back in Anger at Logistics Productivity, 10th Annual State of Logistics Report, Saint Louis, Mo. Garcia, J. I (2009). Department of environmental quality: Air Quality: Vehicle emissions and air quality. Retrieved from Academic Research Library database GeekWire, (2011). GreekWire: Seven apps just for navigating the 520 tolls: GeekWire’s reviews and recommendations retrieved 28 December, 2011 Grübler, A. (1990). The rise and fall of infrastructures: Dynamics of evolution and technological change in transport. Heidelberg and New York: Physica-Verlag http://www.transportationissuesdaily.com/technologys-role-in-moving-people-goods-quicker/ Marchet, G., Alessandro, P, and Perotti, S. (2009). An explanatory study of ICT adoption in the Italian freight transportation industry, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Italy Vehicle Valuation Services, Inc. (2009). Construction and off road equipment: Quick reference guide. Read More