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Road Transport

Characteristics of Road Transportation

logistics photo Photo courtesy of MOVINGON SUMMITOpens in new window

Road transport—also known as highway, truck, and motor carriage—steadily increased its share of transportation. Throughout the 1960s, road transport became the dominant form of freight transport in the United States, replacing rail carriage, and it now accounts for 39.8% of total cargo ton-miles, which is more than 68% of actual tonnage.

The key advantages of road transport over other transportation modes are its flexibility and versatility. Trucks are flexible because they offer door-to-door services without any loading or unloading between origin and destination. Truck’s versatility is made possible by having the widest range of vehicle types, enabling them to transport products of almost any size and weight over any distance.

Road transport also offers reliable and fast service to the customers. The loss and damage ratios for road transport are slightly higher than for the air shipment, but are too far lower than for the rail carriage.

Road transport generally offers faster service than railroads, especially for small shipments (less than truckload, or LTL). For large shipments (truckload, TL), they compete directly with each other on journeys longer than 500 miles.

However, for shipments larger than 100,000 pounds, railOpens in new window is the dominant mode. Also, as motor carriers are more efficient in terminal, pickup, and delivery operations, they compete with air carriers, for both TL and LTL shipments that are transported 500 miles or less.

In regard to economic aspects, road transport has relatively small fixed cost, because it operates on publicly maintained networks of high-speed and often toll-free roads. However, the variable cost per kilometer is high because of fuel, tires, maintenance, and, especially, labor costs (a separate driver and cleaner are required for each vehicle).

Road transport is best suited for small shipments and high value products, moving short distances. Legislative control and driver fatigue are some problems of motor carriers’ long journeys.

Advantages of Road Transportation

  • Almost anything, of whatever size or weight, can be moved.
  • Almost anything can be moved anywhere, that is, there is increased place utility.
  • Road transportation is flexible and versatile. It can reach small out-of-the-way towns where trains and planes do not go.
  • A large network of roads exists in Southern Africa, Europe, North America and South America.
  • Road transport can offer point-to-point service. (Your new washing machine can be delivered right to the doorstep of your home.)
  • Road transport is generally fast and reliable. Often, same-day service is provided. For example, your washing machine can be delivered today. This represents time utility.
  • Road transport is currently the most popular mode of transportation, offering the best coverage of areas.
  • There are two categories of road transportation:
    — General freight carriers, which move general goods like tinned goods, Coca-Cola, etc.

    — Specialized motor carriers, which move specialized items such as goods that have to be kept in cold storage containers, etc.

Disadvantages of Road Transportation

  • The petrol and diesel prices keep going up (which makes it costly to transport heavy items).
  • On longer hauls, rail is often more cost-efficient (since it uses electricity).
  • Road transport cannot convey goods across the seas: it is limited to travel within continents.
See also:
  1. J.C. Johnson, D.F. Wood, D.L. Wardlow, P.R. Murphy, Contemporary Logistics, seventh ed., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1999, pp. 1 – 21.
  2. A. Rushton, P. Crouche, P. Baker, The Handbook of Logistics and Distribution Management, third ed., Kogan Page, London, 2006.
  3. S.C. Ailawadi, R. Singh, Logistics Management, Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi, 2005.
  4. R.H. Ballou, Business Logistics/Supply Chain Management: Planning, Organizing, and Controlling the Supply Chain, fifth ed., Pearson-Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004.
  5. J.R. Stock, D.M. Lambert, Strategic Logistics Management, fourth ed., Irwin McGraw-Hill, New York, 2001.
  6. G. Ghiani, G. Laporte, R. Musmanno, Introduction to Logistics Systems Planning and Control, John Wiley & Sons, NJ, 2004, pp. 6 – 20.
  7. M. Hugos, Essentials of Supply Chain Management, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken NJ, 2003, pp. 1 – 15.
  8. H.T. Lewis, J.W. Culliton, J.D. Steel, The Role of Air Freight in Physical Distribution, Division of Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University, Boston, MA, 1956, p. 82.
  9. D. Riopel, A. Langevin, J.F. Campbell, The network of logistics decisions, in: A. Langevin, D. Riopel (Eds.), Logistics Systems: Design and Optimization, Springer, New York, 2005, pp. 12–17.
  10. M. Browne, J. Allen, Logistics of food transport, in: R. Heap, M. Kierstan, G. Ford (Eds.) Food Transportation, Blackie Academic & Professional, London, 1998, pp. 22–25.
  11. J. Drury, Towards More Efficient Order Picking, IMM Monograph No. 1, The Institute of Materials Management, Cranfield, 1988.
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