What are 7 advantages of transportation?

When it comes to public transit, some cities in the United States stand out. New York City’s metro subway, New Orleans heritage streetcars, and San Francisco’s cable cars are all examples of excellent and memorable transportation. Whether they are transporting locals for their daily commute or tourists riding for fun on their travels, the benefits of public transportation are clear.

In cities and towns across the world, public transportation plays an important role in the lives of residents and visitors alike. Buses, subways, trains, and other public vehicles are designed to make life easier for everyone. From improved community health to affordability, public transportation systems create the foundation on which cities become more livable and prosperous in a variety of ways.

What is Public Transportation?

While public transportation comes in many forms, it can be defined as a system that moves people from one area to another in an efficient, affordable manner. The vast majority of public transportation is funded and operated by local government authorities. Public transportation systems can include:

  • Buses
  • Underground rail systems
  • Trains, including high-speed and light rail
  • Ferries
  • Cable cars

Designed as an alternative to automobile travel and to reduce unnecessary walking time, these vehicles may work within a city or connect one city to another. The benefits of public transportation are amplified when the systems are planned and engineered for interconnectivity, high-quality user experience, and efficiency.

Public transportation may include free amenities like public Wi-Fi, provide opportunities for private business sales, and encourage physical activity among riders. These systems, many with origins that predate the dramatic rise of car ownership in the 1950s, are also part of efforts to conserve energy on both a local and global scale.

Especially in the early planning phases of new public transit plans or prioritizing needed improvements, it’s worth considering the benefits of public transportation when determining budget and design. Here’s a look at eight transportation benefits to consider:

1.  Improves Community Health

For decades, urban planners have looked to public transportation to facilitate improvements in community health and wellbeing. Public transit riders must walk from their front doors to the nearby transit stop and back, which increases physical activity to help address the modern obesity epidemic. In fact, it's possible that people can achieve the 30 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by using public transit.

2.  Economic Benefits to the Community

Every dollar invested in public transportation can yield around $4 in economic gains in the community. This includes supporting a workforce for needed improvements, fostering business clusters, and attracting tourists for both business and pleasure.

People can more easily stop for a snack or a cup of coffee when walking to a transit stop as opposed to driving. This means small businesses can benefit as well. Also, if a homeowner is looking to sell residential property, they might receive a higher offer if it’s located close to a public transportation stop, which is good for the seller and the city’s overall tax base.

3.  Improves Fuel Efficiency

One of the most technical benefits of public transportation is the ability to outfit buses and other public transit vehicles with alternative fuel sources. Some systems are completely electric or utilize renewable resources for fuel.

Even compared to other gas-powered vehicles, public transportation is better in terms of fuel efficiency. The average miles per gallon multiplied by the number of private cars on the road versus transit buses or trains shows less fuel is consumed when using public transportation.

4.  Public Transportation Reduces Air Pollution

Less fuel burned means better air quality for cities that integrate public transit. Approximately 85% of the greenhouse gas emissions that come from transportation are due to day-to-day commutes. By leaving the car at home, a person can save up to 20 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions every day.

5.  Improves Road Congestion

No one likes to be stuck in traffic, but rising populations demand improvements in road infrastructure that can be costly and take a lot of time. However, road construction can often make the situation more challenging before it gets better. Another benefit of public transportation is that more people riding on buses, trains, and other public systems means there are fewer vehicles on the road to cause traffic.

6.  Improves Community Mobility

Inter-city transit systems help riders move throughout the area, regardless of the borough or neighborhood they live in. Many people do not have the capability to drive, so public transportation is sometimes the only option to help them get to their destination.

7.  Provides an Equitable Transportation System

One way to expand the workforce and improve a city’s economy is by giving more people the ability to get to their job, and public transport accomplishes this. This reduces the challenge of needing to be able to afford a car and gasoline — or rely on someone who owns a vehicle — to earn a paycheck.

8.  Public Transportation Improves Commuters Productivity

When someone is behind the wheel, they should only be doing one thing: driving. Many states even have laws against using a smartphone at all while operating an automobile. This multi-tasking limitation of driving can result in hours of ineffective time.

Alternatively, riders of public transportation have the ability to be more productive with their time during their commute. People can sleep, read, and relax on their way to work.

How Planners Bring These Benefits into Their Plans

City residents, officials, and planners who are considering improvements or expansion of their public transportation can maximize the benefits by working with professional planning consultants like our team here at Remix. Together, we can create and communicate transit benefits and plans effectively. This will allow projects to gain the necessary approval and funding in an effort to create more livable communities for residents and visitors alike.

We partnered with Ireland’s National Transport Authority (NTA) to address their challenge of providing public transportation to their many rural populations, who often live in isolated areas. NTA needed help planning effective public transportation routes and services to reach these rural populations, so they asked us to gather data and provide analyses to help them make the best route decisions.

As a result of working together, the NTA increased the number of passenger journeys by over 550,000 after just one year, and they reduced the route approval times for Demand Responsive services from six months to less than three months.

Want to learn more about how transit planners can achieve their community transportation goals? We’d love to connect. Reach out to remix.com/demo.

Roadways are a crucial means of transport in America. They provide people and vehicles to commute a wide range of locations and help them to reach their destination without any hiccups. Road transport is the process of transporting goods or people from one destination to the other via roads. Road transportation is still the most heavily used mode of freight delivery service in Utah and any other regions of America. Even though marine, air or rail transport would be largely used means of solution for bigger size freight services for long distances, road transport will be dominating the freight delivery service across America for a long time.

With the evolution of the transport industry and the growth of many freight delivery service companies in the world, it would be very much unclear for the person in need of transport facilities in deciding which mode of transport would best suit their requirements. Hence it is important to understand the distance, the volume of delivery goods and speed of service for deciding on which model to prefer. Road transport is the most used of all the transport services available in the industry with the best freight delivery services in Utah like Corlett Express. If you even use air/water/train transport for transporting goods from one country to another, you must use road transport for delivering them to their precise destination.

There are many advantages to road transport services when compared to other modes of transport. When you look at the capital required for road transport, it is very less than the other means of transport like air, water or rail. Even the charge for constructing, maintaining and operating roads is very less than that of railways and air transport.

The unmatched benefit of road transport is that it gives door to door service for all the freight deliveries. Road transport is the only extensive system that gives transportation to the final destination. When you compare this to a rail or air transport where you need to make a delivery to the transportation terminal and get into the rail or plane after completion of several security checks. Later after reaching another terminal you have to take another mode of road transport to reach your place of destination. Also, these transportation terminals are usually not inaccessible areas as compared to road transport. With road transport, you can just load the items from your place, drive and unload it right at your required destination.

Road transport is best applicable for transporting goods to and from remote areas that are not connected by other means like rail, air or water transports. The trade-off for goods between cities and small villages happens majorly via road transport.

Road transport possesses has a huge benefit from other modes of transport, that is the flexibility which it provides. The routes and timings can be altered easily and quickly according to individual needs without much problem.

Road transport provides a faster and less costly means of transporting goods over short distances. Other modes of transport like water, air or rail may incur delays in transit of goods with loading and reloading required in multiple locations. In road transport than it can be loaded directly into a single vehicle and later transported directly to the final destination.

As the multiple instances of loading and reloading are negated, there would be very little chance of harm to the transported goods. Hence road transport is best suited for transporting delicate goods that have more possibility of being damaged during numerous stages of loading and unloading.

The procedure of packing the goods in road transport is very minimal while compared to other means of transport, where they would need to ensure safety for multiple loading and unloading process.

If you need to transport goods with short notice, then road transport is much preferred that rail or water transport. With the other transports, it requires extra time to book the goods and taking their delivery.

With road transport, you will not only need only less investment to start with but the capital for operating and maintenance is relatively less. When you consider all the costs of multiple loading and unloading, packaging, etc. the overall cost of road transport will be less.

Another benefit of road transport is that if you have frequent delivery of your products or any other business-related items, then you can start your road services by your private vehicles, according to your capital investments. This will help to deliver the products without any delay regularly. Road transports also have provisions to use any type of vehicle like private cars, public buses, sharing vehicles, two-wheelers, etc. This will meet the needs of different kinds of services.

Even if air or rail transports may be used for long-distance transports, the end destinations in both the starting and end phase require the use of road transport. It acts as a connecting link to other modes of transport.

Summary:

No matter where you need to deliver freight, goods, and supplies from one place to another in America or to the world, you have to surely use road transport. Without the road transport services in Utah or any other states of America, life would be very much difficult without the adequate delivery of goods and any other essential items in a very short requirement time.

Ranking up your needs related to cost, packaging, the volume of the goods and comparing the costs is very important in planning and selecting the best means of transport. With freight delivery services in Utah like Corlett Express, you will be assured to get the best transport services for any of your specific requirements.