Transport

Vehicles may include wagons, automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, helicopters, watercraft, spacecraft, and aircraft.

Governments deal with the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose, including financing, legalities, and policies.

Transport plays an important part in economic growth and globalization, but most types 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 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.

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 majority of aircraft also need an airport with the infrastructure for maintenance, restocking, and refueling and for the loading and unloading of crew, cargo, and passengers.

The rails and perpendicular beams are placed on a foundation made of concrete or compressed earth and gravel in a bed of ballast.

Intercity trains are long-haul services connecting cities;[4] modern high-speed rail is capable of speeds up to 350 km/h (220 mph), but this requires specially built track.

Short-distance systems exist for sewage, slurry, water, and beer, while long-distance networks are used for petroleum and natural gas.

Recently, the progress related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought a lot of new emerging technologies for transportation and automotive fields such as Connected Vehicles and Autonomous Driving.

[20] The institution of policy enforces order in transport, which is by nature chaotic as people attempt to travel from one place to another as fast as possible.

However, other uses exist, such as the strategic and tactical relocation of armed forces during warfare, or the civilian mobility construction or emergency equipment.

Long-haul transport involves the use of the automobile, trains, coaches, and aircraft, the last of which have become predominantly used for the longest, including intercontinental, travel.

An ambulance is a vehicle used to transport people from or between places of treatment,[21] and in some instances will also provide out-of-hospital medical care to the patient.

[27] Logistics refers to the entire process of transferring products from producer to consumer, including storage, transport, transshipment, warehousing, material-handling, and packaging, with associated exchange of information.

[29] Containerization, with the standardization of ISO containers on all vehicles and at all ports, has revolutionized international and domestic trade, offering a huge reduction in transshipment costs.

[30] Bulk transport is common with cargo that can be handled roughly without deterioration; typical examples are ore, coal, cereals, and petroleum.

Commerce requires the transport of people to conduct business, either to allow face-to-face communication for important decisions or to move specialists from their regular place of work to sites where they are needed.

In lean thinking, transporting materials or work in process from one location to another is seen as one of the seven wastes (Japanese term: muda) which do not add value to a product.

Other environmental impacts of transport systems include traffic congestion and automobile-oriented urban sprawl, which can consume natural habitat and agricultural lands.

By reducing transport emissions globally, it is predicted that there will be significant positive effects on Earth's air quality, acid rain, smog, and climate change.

[40] While electric cars are being built to cut down CO2 emission at the point of use, an approach that is becoming popular among cities worldwide is to prioritize public transport, bicycles, and pedestrian movement.

[49][43][50] The fleet emission average for delivery vans, trucks and big rigs is 10.17 kg (22.4 lb) CO2 per gallon of diesel consumed.

In the 2012 United Nations World Conference, global leaders unanimously recognized that transport and mobility are central to achieving the sustainability targets.

In recent years, data has been collected to show that the transport sector contributes to a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore sustainable transport has been mainstreamed across several of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, especially those related to food, security, health, energy, economic growth, infrastructure, and cities and human settlements.

In 1903 the Wright brothers demonstrated the first successful controllable airplane, and after World War I (1914–1918) aircraft became a fast way to transport people and express goods over long distances.

[56] After World War II (1939–1945) the automobile and airlines took higher shares of transport, reducing rail and water to freight and short-haul passenger services.

After the introduction of the Shinkansen in Japan in 1964, high-speed rail in Asia and Europe started attracting passengers on long-haul routes away from the airlines.

Most such transport infrastructure came under government control in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in the nationalization of inter-city passenger rail-service with the establishment of Amtrak.