Importance of Transportation

• Work and Commerce - Many businesses and industries need efficient and fast transport
in order for them to deliver and provide raw materials and products and maintain stable
ventures that can generate revenue.
• Economic growth relies on access to dependable and effective transport that makes it
possible for trade to spread across a broader range of stakeholders.
• Transportation offers numerous opportunities within the employment sector. Traffic control,
pilots, captains, delivery services, and drivers are some of the jobs that are provided
through the industry.
Connections and Convenience

• It is important to cut down the travel costs that consumers and businesses are subjected
to while making it easier for everyone to get to where they need to be.
• Transportation creates a convenient way to get the things you need from wherever you
are. It has opened numerous doors of possibilities and its value cannot be
overemphasized.
Developing Economies

• Transport creates a connection between people and their recreational and personal
activities as well as medical and social facilities.
• When transport infrastructure is properly connected, the environment is beneficial to
economic growth. However, the lack of adequate transport can restrain economic
development due to constraints that limit opportunities.
Streamlining the Tourism Sector

• Through the role of moving people and goods, transport enables tourism and travel by
making it possible for people to go to the places they want to see. Without transportation,
tourism cannot develop, and the international movement would be impossible.
• The travel sector’s growth is dependent on the transport infrastructure that is put in place.
• It is hard to picture a world where people cannot travel or explore other destinations.
• Transport connects the global system by creating a network that makes it easier for people
to go to different places because different means of transport are available.
Moving Businesses to the Next Level

• It is an important activity that provides a medium for the demand for goods and services
while ensuring that customers can access what they need as soon as they need it.
• An effective transport system plays a valuable role in sustaining services on a long-term
basis and keeping the company afloat.
• Transport is necessary for every stage of the production process, from designing concepts
and manufacturing to delivery and consumption. Maximizing on the prospects of business
functions can only be achieved if each procedure and transaction is properly coordinated.
 Impact to Socioeconomic State of a Country
• The economy of any country depends on having many areas working smoothly
and without significant disruptions. And one of the most critical areas for the
economy is transportation.
By applying transportation economics, countries can develop more efficient transport
systems to promote economic development.
The primary role of transportation as a component of any economy is to provide
and improve the access people and organizations have to different locations within the
country or abroad while facilitating a more comprehensive range of social and economic
interactions that would otherwise not be possible.
In transport economics, demand is an especially important measurement which
can be tracked by various means, such as a total number of journeys made, or total
distance travelled, it is usually measured separately for public and private transportation
systems. Understanding your demand, and load, countries can react and adapt their
transportation facilities, transportation investments, transportation costs and various
infrastructure and transportation projects within a country or as a network to the rest of
the world.
Therefore, investment in any form of transportation will help economic
development no matter how high the expenditures may seem to be.
The battle for economic dominance sees different countries trying to leverage
various economic factors to their advantage. And transportation is one of them.
Transport services, the associated infrastructure, and logistics can benefit other nations
in the global markets. For example, the UK has long coastlines with the possibility of
having ships coming and going from their ports represents an advantage over countries
inside the continent with no coasts.
Economic growth and economic productivity requires human interactions. In the
end, it is the people who make trade possible. But, this growth also means population
growth and a higher demand for transportation alternatives for people to move from
their homes to their schools and workplaces.

Also, transportation has helped to take human interactions to a global level. The
fact that air traveling allows us to reach the other side of the planet in one day makes it
possible to see business and cultural exchange worldwide. Therefore, the demand for
passenger transportation increases, which results in more business and more
opportunities for economic development.
 Transportation Planning Process
Transportation planning is a cooperative process designed to foster involvement
by all users of the system, such as businesses, community groups, environmental
organizations, the traveling public, freight operators, and the general public, through a
proactive public participation process.
The four main stages of the transportation planning process are:
• Transportation survey, data collection and analysis
The entire planning process of transportation may be local, regional, or
national, is based on survey and data collection. This includes all types of literature
and data (both government and non-government) available on transportation,
journey behavior patterns, nature and intensity of traffic, freight structure, cost and
benefits, i.e., income, and employment estimates.
• Use of transportation model
The second stage of the transportation planning process is to use the
collected data to build up a transportation model. This model is the key to predicting
future travel demands and network needs and is derived in four recognized stages,
which are the trip generation, trip distribution, traffic assignment and model split.
• Future land use forecasts and alternative policy strategies
The forecasting of future land use inputs is a precarious task, for two
important reasons. Firstly, transport planners have to rely on the judgment of to the
types of planner for most of their land use forecasts. This information is vitally
important since it has a profound effect upon travel forecasts. Secondly, long-term
forecasting is beset with many statistical problems.
Since trans-portation planners are usually working at least 10, and
sometimes 25 years ahead, their estimates are inevitably open to much criticism.
Nevertheless, estimates of future travel demands must be made using the best
methods, which are available. Some of these forecasting problems are amplified
in the listing of the main land use inputs necessary for travel forecasts to be made.
The most important variables are:
(i) Population – its size, age structure and distribution.
(ii) Employment – as the journey to work is the greatest travel demand.
(iii) Personal income and expenditure.
• Policy evaluation
The final stage of the transportation planning process is one of evaluating
the alternative policies, which have been suggested. On the basis of ‘transportation
plan’, transport policies should be formulated and implemented properly so that
systematic ‘sustainable’ development of transport can be done.
 Purpose of Planning Transportation System
The basic purpose of transportation planning and management is to match
transportation supply with travel demand, which represents the need for transportation
infrastructure. A thorough understanding of existing travel pattern is necessary for
identifying and analyzing existing traffic-related problems.

Governance in Transportation
Governance concerns the ownership and management of assets and resources
to fulfill goals such as profit or welfare through the exercise of authority and institutional
resources. It concerns the public as well as the private sectors but tends to apply
differently depending on if public or private interests are at stake. In both cases, a
significant concern is performance, which is how effectively available assets are used.
The governance of transport infrastructure is particularly relevant because of its
strategic, economic, and social importance and the cross-jurisdictional character of many
infrastructures such as highways, rail, and telecommunication networks. Transport is not
a mere convenience, but a fundamental infrastructure that must systematically and
continuously be available to its users. This is where governance plays the important role
of ensuring continuity in operations. Effective governance is complex to assess since it is
not linked with a specific governance structure, but generally conveys several
advantages:
• Confidence. It provides a level of confidence that an activity, such as a terminal,
a transit system, or a logistics zone, is effectively managed. This can involve daily
operations as well as the planning, design, and funding of new infrastructure.
Effective governance is linked with consistent and reliable services as well as a
good level of responsiveness and feedback when an unexpected issue arises.
• Capital costs. Lowers capital costs as investors and financial institutions have
confidence that the allocated capital will be effectively used in the development
and expansion of productive assets generating returns. Avoiding wasteful
investments and practices tends to attract private capital.
• Competitiveness. Improves the capability to compete through the retention of
existing users and the attraction of new ones. This can take many forms, such as
lower costs, but factors such as clear expectations and transparency are also
significant. Keeping market considerations constant, organizations with better
governance are usually able to be more competitive than organizations having less
effective governance.
• Stability. It confers long-term resilience in the organization, which provides a level
of stability in capital markets and the financial institutions supporting them. Many
transportation infrastructures have a long life span that can be more effectively
managed with a stable long-term governance structure.
There are two main components of transport governance.
• Ownership involves who is the owner of the terminal site and facilities (including
equipment)
• Operations involve the day-to-day management and carrying out of terminal
activities