What Is Transport?
Transport or transportation Is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations.
Transport infrastructure consists of both fixed installations, including roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, and pipelines, and terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, warehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots (including fueling docks and fuel stations), and seaports. Terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance.
Means of transport are any of the different kinds of transport facilities used to carry people or cargo. They may include vehicles, riding animals, and pack animals. Vehicles may include wagons, automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, helicopters, watercraft, spacecraft, and aircraft.
What Causes Transportation?
The Need for Transportation
Transportation is needed because few economic resources raw materials, fuels, food, manufactured goods are located where they are wanted. Each region or place on Earth produces more than it consumes of some goods and services and less than it consumes of others.
What Is The Importance Of Transport?
The principal role of transport is to provide or improve access to different locations for individuals and businesses. Transport thus facilitates a wider range of social and economic interactions than would otherwise be possible. Transport is an important sector of the economy in its own right.
What Is The Role Of Transport In Society?
Transportation is the means to access employment, goods, services, leisure, social networks, and using transportation is often a social experience, at times negative (e.g. comfort, safety). Thus, a share of societal consumption is allocated to satisfy mobility needs.
Types Of Transportation
Rural community members primarily use six types of transportation to move around their environment. Depending on the community, some types of transportation may be more commonly available than others. These include:
- Buses, including those that operate within and between communities
- Passenger train service, including Amtrak or commuter rail lines
- Passenger air service, which can be commercial, private, or semi-private
- Personal vehicles like automobiles, including vans and cars for hire like taxis or ride-sharing services, and golf carts or all-terrain vehicles (ATVs)
- Pedestrian transportation, which includes walking and bicycling
- Boats, which may be personally owned or operated as a ferry service
Buses
Many rural communities use buses as the primary vehicle for their public transportation systems, operating fixed-route service on a regular schedule. Unlike rail systems that can require large investments in infrastructure, local or city bus systems use existing roads and lower-cost bus stops. This allows for more flexibility when designing, scheduling, and changing service routes.
The intercity bus system, which often operates larger charter or coach buses, has historically served as a significant form of transportation in rural areas. Intercity buses can provide critically important links between rural communities as well as transportation to larger, regional transit hubs like airports. However, transportation systems are increasingly focusing on expanding routes between large urban centers instead of smaller rural areas. In addition, many transportation carriers that formerly served smaller communities are reducing services because of low ridership and decreased profitability.
Passenger Train Service
Like intercity buses, passenger trains provide vital transportation links between rural communities. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, also known as Amtrak, is the primary provider of this service in the continental United States. The state of Alaska also owns the Alaska Railroad, which provides intercity passenger and freight service. While the majority of passenger train riders live in metropolitan areas like the urban Northeast Corridor, trains can provide affordable, accessible transportation for rural residents traveling into cities for medical care, business, employment, and other services.
Passenger Air Service
People living in remote areas or places with very limited ground transportation access may rely on airplanes to conduct business, deliver goods, transport mail, obtain medical care, and visit friends or family. The federal government provides a subsidy through the Essential Air Service program that is designed to support commercial flights from small communities that would otherwise have limited or no commercial passenger air service.
Personal Vehicles
Automobiles are the dominant mode of transportation in rural areas. Research indicates that only 60% of rural counties have public transportation available and of those, 28% have limited service. As such, rural residents are much more reliant on personal vehicles (cars, trucks, and vans) for routine travel needs. According to the Rural Transit Fact Book, over 90% of passenger trips in rural areas occur in automobiles, and over 80% of rural workers commute alone in a private vehicle. Only 4% of rural households report having zero vehicles available to them.
Rural residents are also more likely to continue driving over the age of 75 compared to their urban counterparts. However, for older adults and others who are unable to drive in rural areas, car-dominant communities can be difficult to navigate. In addition, ride-sharing services and commercial taxis may offer limited services in/to rural communities due to cost burdens associated with serving a population that is geographically dispersed. These costs can include longer distances between pick-up locations and longer wait times between passengers, which can increase costs for drivers that may also be passed down to users.
In addition to automobiles, rural residents may use golf carts or ATVs for short trips around their communities, often using sidewalks and bike lanes to safely avoid automobile traffic. These methods can be particularly useful for younger and older residents because they are relatively inexpensive and operate at slower speeds than cars.
Pedestrian Transportation
Biking and walking are becoming increasingly popular forms of transportation and exercise. However, many people living in rural areas may not be able to walk to work or school because of long distances between destinations or concerns about safety. Some rural communities are considering strategies to support pedestrian infrastructure to make it easier and safer for people to walk or bicycle around their community, to other transportation hubs like bus stations, and for recreation. Additionally, bike share programs in rural communities can make biking more affordable and accessible.
Boats
Particularly in some Alaskan communities with limited road access, boats may be an important source of transportation between population centers and services. In other places, ferries may serve as a link between island or river communities. Public and private ferry services are generally designed to carry both passengers and their automobiles. Waterways can also be significant sources of economic activity for rural communities from tourism, shipping, or fishing and harvesting operations.
What Are Some Benefits Of Transportation?
Thus transport connects the rural community with markets and farm input suppliers, education and employment opportunities, health and welfare facilities. Transport also supports family and community development by providing the necessary access to gatherings (social or political) outside of the locality.
Transport Prices In Ghana:
| VIP Route (Executive Coach) | Fare/Price |
|---|---|
| Accra – Kumasi | GHS 100 |
| Accra- Sunyani | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Takyiman | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Sampa | GHS 160 |
| Accra- Drobo | GHS 150 |
| Accra – Dormaa | GHS 150 |
| Accra- Kintampo | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Nkoranza | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Sefwi Juaboso | GHS 150 |
| Accra – Ahafo Mim | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Ahafo Goaso | GHS 140 |
| Accra – Dunkwa | GHS 125 |
| Accra – Ash Mampong | GHS 115 |
| Accra – Ash Bekwai | GHS 115 |
| Accra – Obuasi | GHS 120 |
| Accra – Tamale | GHS 250 |
| Accra – Yendi | GHS 260 |
| Accra – Bolga | GHS 280 |
| Accra – Navrongo | GHS 290 |
| Accra – Bawku | GHS 295 |
| Accra – Wa | GHS 270 |
| Accra – Buipe | GHS 230 |
| Accra – Garu | GHS 295 |
| Accra – Nandom | GHS 270 |
| Accra – Hamile | GHS 275 |
| Kumasi – Tamale | GHS 150 |
| Kumasi- Bolga | GHS 180 |
| Kumasi – Bawku | GHS 190 |
| Kumasi – Garu | GHS 200 |
| Kumasi- Wa | GHS 170 |
| Kumasi – Sunyani | GHS 40 |
| Kumasi- Goaso | GHS 40 |
| Kumasi- Takyiman | GHS 40 |
| Accra – Abuakwa- Kumasi | GHS 110 |