Road Transport System: Introduction

1. Introduction

In this section you will learn more about the road transport system. First, you will learn what activities drive the system and what kind of goods are transported on the road. After that, the road vehicles and the infrastructure of roads are being presented to you. Furthermore, the facilities in road transport are described. Finally, you will learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of the road transport system.

In this section, the following aspects are presented:

The activities, that are driving the road system,
goods, that are normally transported via road,
the used road vehicles,
the road infrastructure and its relevant facilities.

From a system perspective, the goal of the system must be clarified first. As explained in the section introducing the system model, the main goal of the subsystems (for transport) considered in the following topics is the change of location.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, the relocation should be done at the lowest possible cost. There is an overall consideration of the costs, which takes into account not only the pure transport costs, but also the total costs of the transport system. The more the production or trading system depends on the timely provision of goods and commodities, the more the total cost of the supply chain is considered.

The following applies to almost all modes of transport: the larger the transport container, the higher the economic and usually also the ecological efficiency.

In this sense, especially in long-distance transport, the largest possible transport containers are used in order to be able to take advantage of economies of scale (volume degression effect). This also applies to just-in-time supply chains, where the goods must be provided in the right place at the right time.

For a better understanding of the road transport, an overview of the various system elements is given to you on the following pages. The elements and relations of the road system model are shown in the figure "Road system model". At the end of this topic, the advantages and disadvantages of road transport are elaborated in order to understand the reasons for choosing road transport.

Mindmap — Road system model von Prof. Dr.-Ing. Heike Flämig, Dorothee Schielein (CC BY-SA)

So let's start with the first element activites on the next page.

Literature

Flämig, H., Sjöstedt, L., Hertel, C. (2002): Multimodal Transport: An Integrated Element for Last-Mile-Solutions? Proceedings, part 1; International Congress on Freight Transport Automation and Multimodality: Organisational and Technological Innovations. Delft, 23 & 24 May 2002. (modification of Sjöstedt 1996)