Freight transport, also referred to as freight forwarding, is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been extended to refer to transport by land or air as well. "Logistics", a term borrowed from the military environment, is also used in the same sense.
The vast majority of passenger travel in the United States occurs by automobile for shorter distances and airplane or railroad for longer distances. Most cargo in the U.S. is transported by, in descending order, railroad, truck, pipeline, or boat; air shipping is typically used only for perishables and premium express shipments. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
A vehicle is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered vehicles, animal-powered transports, motor vehicles and railed vehicles, but more broadly also includes cable transport, watercraft, amphibious vehicles, aircraft and space vehicles.
Transport in Europe provides for the movement needs of over 700 million people and associated freight.
A watercraft or waterborne vessel is any vehicle designed for travel across or through water bodies, such as a boat, ship, hovercraft, submersible or submarine.
In transportation, freight refers to goods conveyed by land, water or air, while cargo refers specifically to freight when conveyed via water or air. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in case of goods in the cold-chain, because the perishable inventory is always in transit towards a final end-use, even when it is held in cold storage or other similar climate-controlled facilities, including warehouses.
Sustainable transport refers to ways of transportation that are sustainable in terms of their social and environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used for road, water or air transport; the source of energy; and the infrastructure used to accommodate the transport. Transport operations and logistics as well as transit-oriented development are also involved in evaluation. Transportation sustainability is largely being measured by transportation system effectiveness and efficiency as well as the environmental and climate impacts of the system. Transport systems have significant impacts on the environment, accounting for between 20% and 25% of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of the emissions, almost 97%, came from direct burning of fossil fuels. In 2019, about 95% of the fuel came from fossil sources. The main source of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union is transportation. In 2019 it contributes to about 31% of global emissions and 24% of emissions in the EU. In addition, up to the COVID-19 pandemic, emissions have only increased in this one sector. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other energy using sector. Road transport is also a major contributor to local air pollution and smog.
The history of transport is largely one of technological innovation. Advances in technology have allowed people to travel farther, explore more territory, and expand their influence over increasingly larger areas. Even in ancient times, new tools such as foot coverings, skis, and snowshoes lengthened the distances that could be traveled. As new inventions and discoveries were applied to transport problems, travel time decreased while the ability to move more and larger loads increased. Meanwhile Innovation continues as transport researchers are working to find new ways to reduce costs and increase transport efficiency.
Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight rate is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another. The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination. Many shipping services, especially air carriers, use dimensional weight for calculating the price, which takes into account both weight and volume of the cargo.
A dual-mode vehicle (DMV) is a vehicle that can operate on conventional road surfaces as well as a railway track or a dedicated track known as a guideway. The development of these vehicles started together with personal rapid transport systems in the 1950s or even earlier.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transport:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to vehicles:
Land transport is the transport or movement of people, animals or goods from one location to another location on land. This is in contrast with other main types of transport such as maritime transport and aviation. The two main forms of land transport can be considered to be rail transport and road transport.
Transport geography or transportation geography is a branch of geography that investigates the movement and connections between people, goods and information on the Earth's surface.
Transport or transportation is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land, water, cable, pipelines, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations.
The health and environmental impact of transport is significant because transport burns most of the world's petroleum. This causes illness and deaths from air pollution, including nitrous oxides and particulates, and is a significant cause of climate change through emission of carbon dioxide. Within the transport sector, road transport is the largest contributor to climate change.
Transport in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was an important part of the nation's economy. The economic centralisation of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure at a massive scale and rapid pace. Before the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, there were a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air. However, because of government policies before, during and after the Era of Stagnation, investments in transport were low. By the late 1970s and early 1980s Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the strain from the railways and to improve the state budget. The civil aviation industry, represented by Aeroflot, was the largest in the world, but inefficiencies plagued it until the USSR's collapse. The road network remained underdeveloped, and dirt roads were common outside major cities. At the same time, the attendance of the few roads they had were ill-equipped to handle this growing problem. By the late-1980s, after the death of Leonid Brezhnev, his successors tried, without success, to solve these problems. At the same time, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than the construction of new roads. By the mid-1970s, only 0.8 percent of the Soviet population owned a car.
Urban freight distribution is the system and process by which goods are collected, transported, and distributed within urban environments. The urban freight system can include seaports, airports, manufacturing facilities, and warehouse/distribution centers that are connected by a network of railroads, rail yards, pipelines, highways, and roadways that enable goods to get to their destinations.
The freight technology sector, also known as FreightTech, refers to software companies and technologies which assist in supply chain management and the movement of freight. In the five years following 2014, investment in FreightTech companies grew from $118 million to $3 billion per year.
