Match transportation modes with their characteristics and then read the text to check your answers. Summarize the text using the table.

1. Road transportation	a) Applies to passenger movements b) Are used in difficult environmental conditions c) Average level of constraints d) Average operational flexibility e) Combination of modes f) Effective interconnection g) For heavy industry h) For heavy industry i) For high value freight j) For light industry k) Has high inventory costs l) Has high terminal costs m) Has multidimensional constraints n) Have different diameters o) High network costs p) No physicality q) Practically unlimited r) Substitution for personal movement s) The highest capacity t) The lowest level of physical constraints u) The most effective for large quantities v) The most effective for long distances w) Unlimited routes
2. Rail transportation
3. Pipelines
4. Maritime transportation
5. Air transportation
6. Intermodal transportation
7. Telecommunications

A Diversity of Modes ^[53]

Transport modes are the means by which people and freight achieve mobility. They fall into one of three basic types, depending on over what surface they travel – land (road, rail and pipelines), water (shipping), and air. Each mode is characterized by a set of technical, operational and commercial characteristics:

Road transportation. Road infrastructures are large consumers of space with the lowest level of physical constraints among transportation modes. However, physiographical constraints are significant in road construction with substantial additional costs to overcome features such as rivers or rugged terrain. Road transportation has an average operational flexibility as vehicles can serve several purposes but are rarely able to move outside roads. Road transport systems have high maintenance costs, both for the vehicles and infrastructures. They are mainly linked to light industries where rapid movements of freight in small batches are the norm. Yet, with containerization, road transportation has become a crucial link in freight distribution.

Rail transportation. Railways are composed of a traced path on which there are bound vehicles. They have an average level of physical constrains linked to the types of locomotives and a low gradient is required, particularly for freight. Heavy industries are traditionally linked with rail transport systems, although containerization has improved the flexibility of rail transportation by linking it with road and maritime modes. Rail is by far the land transportation mode offering the highest capacity with a 23,000 tons fully loaded coal unit train being the heaviest load ever carried.

Pipelines. Pipeline routes are practically unlimited as they can be laid on land or under water. The longest gas pipeline links Alberta to Sarnia (Canada), which is 2,911 km in length. The longest oil pipeline is the Transiberian, extending over 9,344 km from the Russian arctic oilfields in eastern Siberia to Western Europe. Physical constraints are low and include the landscape in arctic or subarctic environments. Pipeline construction costs vary according to the diameter and increase proportionally with the distance and with the viscosity of fluids (from gas, low viscosity, to oil, high viscosity). The Trans Alaskan pipeline, which is 1,300 km long, was built under difficult conditions and has to be above ground for most of its path. Pipeline terminals are very important since they correspond to refineries and harbors.

Maritime transportation. Because of the physical properties of water conferring buoyancy and limited friction, maritime transportation is the most effective mode to move large quantities of cargo over long distances. Main maritime routes are composed of oceans, coasts, seas, lakes, rivers and channels. However, due to the location of economic activities maritime circulation takes place on specific parts of the maritime space, particularly over the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. The construction of channels locks and dredging are attempts to facilitate maritime circulation by reducing discontinuity. Comprehensive inland waterway systems include Western Europe, the Volga / Don system, St. Lawrence / Great Lakes system, the Mississippi and its tributaries, the Amazon, the Panama / Paraguay and the interior of China. Maritime transportation has high terminal costs, since port infrastructures are among the most expensive to build, maintain and improve. High inventory costs also characterize maritime transportation. More than any other mode, maritime transportation is linked to heavy industries, such as steel and petrochemical facilities adjacent to port sites.

Air transportation. Air routes are practically unlimited, but they are denser over the North Atlantic, inside North America and Europe and over the North Pacific. Air transport constraints are multidimensional and include the site (a commercial plane needs about 3,300 meters of runway for landing and take-off), the climate, fog and aerial currents. Air activities are linked to the tertiary and quaternary sectors, notably finance and tourism, which lean on the long distance mobility of people. More recently, air transportation has been accommodating growing quantities of high value freight and is playing a growing role in global logistics.

Intermodal transportation. Concerns a variety of modes used in combination so that the respective advantages of each mode are better exploited. Although intermodal transportation applies for passenger movements, such as the usage of the different, but interconnected modes of a public transit system, it is over freight transportation that the most significant impacts have been observed. Containerization has been a powerful vector of intermodal integration, enabling maritime and land transportation modes to more effectively interconnect.

Telecommunications. Cover a grey area in terms of if they can be considered as a transport mode since unlike true transportation, telecommunications often do not have physicality. Yet, they are structured as networks with a practically unlimited capacity with very low constraints, which may include the physiography and oceanic masses that may impair the setting of cables. They provide for the instantaneous movement of information (speed of light in theory). Wave transmissions, because of their limited coverage, often require substations, such as for cellular phone networks. Satellites are often using a geostationary orbit which is getting crowded. High network costs and low distribution costs characterize many telecommunication networks, which are linked to the tertiary and quaternary sectors (stock markets, business to business information networks, etc.). Telecommunications can provide a substitution for personal movements in some economic sectors.

b. Translate the terms:

 

1. pipeline	2. freight
3. road transportation	4. rail transportation
5. maritime transportation	6. vehicle
7. maintenance costs	8. batch
9. containerization	10. viscosity
11. refinery	12. inland waterway system
13. terminal costs	14. inventory costs

 

c. Match synonyms:

1. pipeline	a) climate
2. costs	b) effect
3. cost	c) system
4. freight	d) ability
5. container	e) deviate
6. industry	f) provision
7. mode	g) form
8. route	h) road
9. to vary	i) box
10. condition	j) interlink
11. environment	k) channel
12. to facilitate	l) to ease
13. impact	m) expenses
14. significant	n) haul
15. network	o) price
16. capacity	p) substantial
17. interconnected	q) branch of business