Transportation Modes Paper 1 
Christopher M Melton
Senior Research Paper
March 2, 2010
Key Factors to Consider when Deciding on a Mode of Transport
It is Friday evening and you have just sat down at the fireplace after a wonderful meal. You and your spouse open a bottle of your favorite Italian wine and sip away. All the time you are sipping away I bet you never thought once about how that exquisite bottle of wine made it to your living room. Most likely it’s travels involved something like this……a truck ride on a long country road from the vines in Italy to the manufacturer who then sent the wine in containers via truck to a bottling plant who then sent the bottles on a train across Italy to a port that then shipped the wine across the Atlantic Ocean where it was picked up by another truck and taken to an airport to be flown from Florida to Virginia where it was again loaded on a truck who delivered it to your grocery store off the Boulevard in Colonial Heights.
We do not often think about how products make it to our homes or our lives. However, the process can be quite extensive and involves many logistical and supply chain challenges. Tseng emphasizes the importance of transportation logistics, “ The operation of transportation determines the efficiency of moving parts. The progress in techniques and management principles improves the moving load, delivery speed, service quality, operation costs, the usage of facilities and energy saving. Transportation takes a crucial part in the manipulation of logistics and a proper transport implements and techniques to link the producing procedures.” (online, www.gisdata.com). What does all of that mean? The bigger picture is this: transportation plays a major logistical role for companies, governments, and consumers across the world. Would you want to pay the extra charges to ship your new couch all by itself from Italy to your front door? Most people would answer no to that question. We all rely on sophisticated
Senior Research Paper
March 2, 2010
Key Factors to Consider when Deciding on a Mode of Transport
It is Friday evening and you have just sat down at the fireplace after a wonderful meal. You and your spouse open a bottle of your favorite Italian wine and sip away. All the time you are sipping away I bet you never thought once about how that exquisite bottle of wine made it to your living room. Most likely it’s travels involved something like this……a truck ride on a long country road from the vines in Italy to the manufacturer who then sent the wine in containers via truck to a bottling plant who then sent the bottles on a train across Italy to a port that then shipped the wine across the Atlantic Ocean where it was picked up by another truck and taken to an airport to be flown from Florida to Virginia where it was again loaded on a truck who delivered it to your grocery store off the Boulevard in Colonial Heights.
We do not often think about how products make it to our homes or our lives. However, the process can be quite extensive and involves many logistical and supply chain challenges. Tseng emphasizes the importance of transportation logistics, “ The operation of transportation determines the efficiency of moving parts. The progress in techniques and management principles improves the moving load, delivery speed, service quality, operation costs, the usage of facilities and energy saving. Transportation takes a crucial part in the manipulation of logistics and a proper transport implements and techniques to link the producing procedures.” (online, www.gisdata.com). What does all of that mean? The bigger picture is this: transportation plays a major logistical role for companies, governments, and consumers across the world. Would you want to pay the extra charges to ship your new couch all by itself from Italy to your front door? Most people would answer no to that question. We all rely on sophisticated
Cited: 12 Steps to a “Greener” Supply Chain. 2008. Paul Brody and Mondher Ben-Hamida Online: www.environmentalleader.com Advantage of Third Party Logistics in Supply Chain Management. 2010. Toshinori Nemoto and Koichiro Tezuka. Online: www.jobfunctions.bnet.com CSX Early History of Water based Transportation. 2009. Online: www.waterencyclopedia.com Exxon Valdez Oil Spill History of Commercial Air Freight. 2009. Online: www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation History of Rail Transport. 2009. Online: www.en.wikipedia/wiki/history_of_rail_transport History of Road Transport. 2009. Online: www.en.wikipedia/wiki/historyofroadtransport Johnson, James and Wood, Donald Logistics and Fleet Management. 2010. Online: www.gisdata.com Multimodal transportation, logistics, and the environment: managing interactions in a global economy Pipeline Transport. 2009. Online: www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pipeline_transport Transportation Modes: An Overview March 2, 2010