Advantage and Disadvantages of different modes of transport on a Essay

Advantage and Disadvantages of different modes of transport on a global scale - Essay Example He could always perch himself on an horse or an elephant or sledge himself using his dogs for his own personal transport. But when it came to moving material that belonged to him, he found himself in a tough spot. He had to invent wheels which started off as large logs to all those modes of transport today that we are going to discuss in this paper.In order to appreciate the way the freight transport industry is progressing and the methodologies that they have been adopting, it is important hat we understand their history and hence get a total perspective of the whole industry. The freight industry was and continues to be most important economic requirement that any of the countries would need. Many times in the history of the civilization of Man we find that the country that had better logistics won many battles and hence the war. Many times they also won wars that they never fought both economical superiority and logistic superiority. When a country could produce and sell their pro ducts across the world then they end up superior to the people who are yet to come to grips with the logistics of movement of goods and services.Let us trace the history of freight transportation from 1800 to the modern days. If we see today, there are five modes of transport that are very much in vogue. 1. The railways. 2. The waterways 3. The airways 4. The roadways 5. the pipelines. The ships had their major technology change when the steam engine was invented and they were mounted on the hitherto paddled or wind powered boats to make gigantic ships that could literally rush through the sea. The same invention also changed the way people and material traveled over the land as well in the form of railways. Steam engines altered the modes of transport on sea in 1807 and on land in 1829. Transportation now became cheap and fast over all the surfaces of the earth both land and water. This brought in a revolution that literally changed the way industry was looked at. The IC engines brought in another round of change with technological upgrade. The world became smaller and smaller with faster traveling and transport mechanisms, men could pack their material and send it over railroads that traveled over 5 times as fast an horse would. Soon there were the trucks and the vehicles that plied the roads. The roadways also changed the very approach to traveling by individuals. It also changed the way people started looking at manufacturing processes. With a reach that spanned every corner of the country, roads brought the neighborhoods as close as close can be. Central production with a distribution set up started forming across the country making cheaper products a reality. With IC engines another major development in technology was also ushered in. This was the aircraft. With the invention of the aircraft, we find the transport time getting reduced by more than 10 times across the world, leading time a world wide integration of manufacturing. This also was rising the scale of production and an economics of scale and the economics of logistics went together to make things possible in the country. Pipes and conveyors also formed another set of transporting mechanisms that helped in putting together an easy but effective way of transporting material over longer distances and huge volumes. 3. The Industry and how it works The logistics industry or transport industry has the following major constituents. 1. The supplier or the sender of the material 2. The buyer or the receiver of the material 3. Transportation in the mode of transport that is suited 4. In case of multimodal, arranging so that the time taken is