This document discusses various modes of transportation including rail, road, water, air, pipeline, and multimodal transport. It provides details on the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of each mode. Rail transport is best for heavy loads over long distances but has limitations around flexibility. Road transport has the most extensive networks but is expensive for long distances. Water transport has low costs but slow speeds. Air transport provides fast delivery but is very costly. Pipelines are only for transporting fluids over long distances. Multimodal transport combines two or more modes for a single journey.

1. MODES OF
TRANSPORT
UNIT II: MODES OF TRANSPORTATION
Modes of Transport and Multi-modalism - Rail, Road, Inland Waterways, Short Sea Shipping, Air - Characteristics, Physical Assets
for Multimodal Transport Logistics - Description and Use - Containers for sea, rail, road and air; Handling Equipment for all
modes, Physical Assets for MT Logistics - Description and Use – Terminals: Ports, Rail, Road, Inland Waterways, Airport, Risk
Management in Transportation

2.  The modes of transport describes the way goods are
transported.
 There are basically five different modes;
* Rail * Road * Air
* Water * Pipeline * Multimodal
Modes of Transport

3. Rail
 For heavy and large loads over long land journeys
Advantages
 Lowest overall cost per unit weight
 Can be most effective when linked
into multimodal system
 Its inflexibility
 Trains can only travel along specified
 Railway is the safest form of transport 
Disadvantages
 Routes between fixed terminals
They cannot stop at intermediary
points
 Rail transport cannot provide door to
door service
 Ineffective with small shipments

4. Road
 The most common mode of transport and it is used at least somewhere in
almost all supply chains.
Advantages
 Main benefit: flexibility
 Travel speed
 Use extensive road networks
 Large number of carriers working
in the same areas
 Easy to monitor location of goods
 These become relatively
expensive,so road transport is
Disadvantages
 For shorter distances
 Vulnerable to congestion and
traffic delays
 Dependence on fuel price

5. Water
 It is used for big volumes for international traffic
Advantages
 For heavy and bulky goods
 For products with long lead times
 Cheaper traffic means
 Longer lead/delivery times and
slow
Disadvantages
 Difficulty in monitoring exact
location
 Limited to appropriate ports
 Transfers to ships take time

6. Air
 Urgent, perishable goods or high value are transported by air.
Advantages
 Speed of delivery
 Transfers take time in the airport
Disadvantages
 It is a costly transport
 Weight limits

7. Pipeline
 The main uses of pipelines are oil and gas together with the utilities of water
and sewage.
Advantages Disadvantages
 Moving large quantities over long
distances.
 Cheapest way of moving liquids
 Local networks can add flexibility
 Being slow
 Inflexible
 Only carrying large volumes of certain
types of fluid

8. MULTIMODAL TRANSPORT
Refers to journeys that
involve two or more
different modes of
transport.

9. Choice of Modes
* Choice of mode depends on a variety of factors.The main ones are the
nature of materials to move, the volume and distance.
SPEED VOLUME SECURITY COST
TYPE OF
GOODS
HIGHWAY High Low Media Low All
RAIL Media High High Media
Commonly for
heavy and large
loads
WATER Low Very High High Low
Commonly for
heavy and large
loads
AIR
Very High
Low
Very High
High
urgent,
perishable
goods or of high
value
MULTIMODAL High Media Media Media All