Transport
Transport or transportation is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land, water, cable, pipelines, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations.
Transport infrastructure consists of fixed installations, including roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, and pipelines, as well as terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, warehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots, and seaports. Terminals may be used both for the interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance.
Means of transport are any of the different kinds of transport facilities used to carry people or cargo. They may include vehicles, riding animals, and pack animals. Vehicles may include wagons, automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, helicopters, watercraft, spacecraft, and aircraft.
Modes
A mode of transport is a solution that makes use of a certain type of vehicle, infrastructure, and operation. The transport of a person or of cargo may involve one mode or several of the modes, with the latter case being called inter-modal or multi-modal transport. Each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages, and will be chosen on the basis of cost, capability, and route.Governments regulate the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose, including financing, legalities, and policies. In the transport industry, operations and ownership of infrastructure can be public, private, or a partnership between the two, depending on the country and mode. Transport modes can be a mix of the two ownership systems, such as privately owned cars and government-owned urban transport in cities. Many international airlines have a mixed public-private ownership.
Passenger transport may be public, where operators provide scheduled services, or private. Freight transport has become focused on containerization, although bulk transport is used for large volumes of durable items. Transport plays an important part in economic growth and globalization, but machine-propelled forms cause air pollution and use large amounts of land. While it is heavily subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow and restrain urban sprawl.
Human-powered
Human-powered transport, a form of sustainable transport, is the transport of people or goods using human muscle-power, in the form of walking, running, and swimming. Technology has allowed machines to improve the energy efficiency of human mobility on relatively smooth terrain. Human-powered transport remains popular for reasons of cost-saving, leisure, physical exercise, and environmentalism; it is sometimes the only type available, especially in underdeveloped or inaccessible regions.Although humans are able to walk without infrastructure, the accessibility can be enhanced through the use of roads, sidewalks, and shared-use paths, especially when using the human power with vehicles, such as bicycles, inline skates, and wheelchairs. Human-powered vehicles have been developed for difficult environments, such as snow and water, by watercraft rowing and skiing; even the air can be flown through with human-powered aircraft. Personal transporters, a form of hybrid human-electric powered vehicle, have emerged in the 21st century as a form of multi-model urban transport.
Animal-powered
Animal-powered transport is the use of working animals for the movement of people and commodities. Humans may ride some of the animals directly, use them as pack animals for carrying goods, or harness them, alone or in teams, to pull sleds or wheeled vehicles. They remain useful in rough terrain that is not readily accessible by automotive-based transportation.Air
A fixed-wing aircraft, commonly called an airplane, is a heavier-than-air craft where movement of the air in relation to the wings is used to generate lift. The term is used to distinguish this from rotary-wing aircraft, where the movement of the lift surfaces relative to the air generates lift. A gyroplane is both fixed-wing and rotary wing. Fixed-wing aircraft range from small trainers and recreational aircraft to large airliners and military cargo aircraft.Two things necessary for aircraft are air flow over the wings for lift and an apparatus for landing. The majority of aircraft require an airport with the infrastructure for maintenance, restocking, and refueling and for the loading and unloading of crew, cargo, and passengers. Many aerodromes have takeoff and landing restrictions on weight and runway length, and so are not able to handle all types of aircraft. While the vast majority of fixed-wing aircraft land and take off on land, some are capable of take-off and landing on ice, snow, and calm water.
Autonomous or remotely-piloted airplanes are known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAV. These drones can range in size from less than a metre across to a full-sized airplane. They are capable of carrying a payload, and are being used for package delivery.
The aircraft is the second fastest method of transport, after the rocket. Commercial jets can reach up to, single-engine aircraft. Aviation is able to quickly transport people and limited amounts of cargo over longer distances, but incurs high costs and energy use; for short distances or in inaccessible places, helicopters can be used. As of April 28, 2009, The Guardian article notes that "the WHO estimates that up to 500,000 people are on planes at any time."
An aerostat is a class of lighter-than-air aircraft that gains its lift by containing a volume of gas that has a lower density than the surrounding atmosphere. These include balloons and rigid, semi-rigid, or non-rigid airships; the last is called a blimp. The lifting gas is typically helium, as hydrogen is highly flammable. Alternatively, heated air is used in hot air balloons and thermal airships. Aerostats can transport passengers and a payload over long distances. For example, zeppelins were used on long-ranged bombing raids during World War I.
Land
Land transport covers all land-based transport systems that provide for the movement of people, goods, and services. Land transport plays a vital role in linking communities to each other. Land transport is a key factor in urban planning. It consists of two kinds, rail and road.Rail
Rail transport consists of wheeled vehicles running on tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails, known as a railway or railroad. The rails are anchored perpendicular to ties of timber, concrete, or steel, to maintain a consistent distance apart, or gauge. The rails and perpendicular beams are placed on a foundation made of concrete or compressed earth and gravel in a bed of ballast. Alternative methods include monorail, maglev, and hyperloop. Dual gauge railways have three or four rails, allowing use by trains with two or three track gauges. For steep grades, a railway can use an additional toothed rack rail for traction.A train consists of one or more connected vehicles that operate on the rails, known as rolling stock. Propulsion is commonly provided by a locomotive, which hauls a series of unpowered cars that carry passengers or freight. The locomotive can be powered by steam, diesel, gas turbine, or else electricity supplied by trackside systems. Some or all the cars can be powered, known as a multiple unit. A tram is similar to a train, but is generally smaller, travels shorter distances, and runs on rails that are integrated into the streets. Typically a tram is electric-powered, but they have also been propelled by horses, cables, gravity, or pneumatics. Railed vehicles move with much less friction than rubber tires on paved roads, making trains more energy efficient, though not as efficient as ships.
Intercity trains are long-haul services connecting cities; modern high-speed rail is capable of speeds up to, but this requires specially built track. Commercial maglev transport in Shanghai runs at. Regional and commuter trains feed cities from suburbs and surrounding areas, while intra-urban transport is performed by high-capacity tramways and rapid transits, in many cases making up the backbone of a city's public transport. Freight trains traditionally used box cars, requiring manual loading and unloading of the cargo. Since the 1980s, container trains have become the dominant solution for general freight, while large quantities of bulk are transported by dedicated rolling stock. An example of the latter are specially designed tank cars for the transport of hazardous materials.
Road
A road is an identifiable route, way, or path between two or more places. Roads are typically smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel; though they need not be, and historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or maintenance. In urban areas, roads may pass through a city or village and be named as streets, serving a dual function as urban space easement and route.At least within the U.S., the most common road vehicle is the automobile; a light duty wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. Other users of roads include buses, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians. As of 2015, there were 950 million passenger cars worldwide, with a projected total of 2.5 billion in 2050. Road transport offers road users the flexibility to transfer the vehicle from one lane to the other and from one road to another according to the need and convenience. This combination of changes in location, direction, speed, and timings of travel is not available to other motorized modes of transport. It is possible to provide efficient intracity door-to-door service only by road transport.
Some drawbacks are that a road system consumes large amounts of space, are costly to build and maintain, leads to urban congestion, and have only limited ability to achieve economies of scale. Automobiles provide high flexibility with low capacity, but require high energy and area use, and are the main source of harmful noise and air pollution in cities; buses allow for more efficient travel at the cost of reduced flexibility. Road transport by truck is often the initial and final stage of freight transport.