Transportation

Transportation Final

1. Discuss the competitive and the comparative advantages of disadvantage of one carrier mode of transportation.

Comparative advantages of water transport - Water transportation is the least expensive and slowest mode of freight transport. It is generally used to transport heavy products over long distances when speed is not an issue. Although accessibility is a problem with ships—because they are necessarily limited to coastal area or major inland waterways—piggybacking is possible using either trucks or rail cars. However, industry observers note that port terminal accessibility to land-based modes of transportations is lacking in many regions. The main advantage of water transportation is that it can move products all over the world. It can also move more products. Normally the time to take for water transport would be a disadvantage, but with technology and ships are bigger than ever. Companies are buying in bulk therefore countering the long wait time.

bulk transport costs has been reduced to such an extent that it is often cheaper for industries to import raw materials by sea from suppliers thousands of miles away than by land from suppliers only a few hundred miles away. For example, the rail freight for a ton of coal from Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida, was almost three times the sea freight from Hampton Roads to Japan.

With fuel prices on the rise and logistics costs under scrutiny, some shippers who usually do their shipping by air, are shifting their attention from air transportation to sea. It seems surprising that some shippers would do that, given the difference in speed. But a number of companies are finding the new, enhanced ocean shipping services including time definite services, can save them money while still meeting their delivery needs.

This allows companies to take advantage of economies. The post-Panamax ships which can accommodate larger ships, which allows them to transport larger amounts of goods...