Group 3

Innovation in Land Transportation

Transportation is defined by Oxford as an act to move a person or a thing from one place to
another. The two main forms of land transportation are rail and road transport. Rail transportation pertains
to the vehicles which run on a flat surface or railway system. On the other hand, road transportation
pertains to the usage of roads or highways in order to transport goods or people. Both forms of land
transportation play an important role in our daily lives. In an article published by history world (2001), it
states that during the Before Christian Era (B.C.E), human beings used the animals; such as donkeys,
horses, elephants, and camels for transportation. Most of the pieces of evidence regarding the innovation
of our land transportation came from Mesopotamia, an ancient civilization in the Middle East.
Throughout the years, human beings never stopped from discovering and inventing a new transportation
system, which leads to the development of civilization and the organization of cities.

Modern land transportation is at its peak nowadays, and it will for sure continue to advance or
evolve over the next coming years. But its advancement hasn’t always been like this. In the 18th century,
omnibus and bicycles were the most common and used land transportation. According to World Wide
Words (1999), omnibus started in France as part of the name for a new type of public transport that was
open to everyone, of any social class. Thomas Tilling started this transport service, which is a long coach
and drawn by horses. A few decades later, the bicycle started to emerge as the mode of transportation for
people. It was invented by a German named Baron Karl von Drais, and he named it “Laufmaschine”. It is
consists of two wheels held together by one central bar. After 40 years, two French carriage makers came
up with an idea and revolutionized the bicycle word. The modern age of bicycles, the ones we have today
started in the 1960s and 70s. During the 19th century, automobiles, trucks, and busses were added to the
list of land transportation systems. An automobile is defined by wordnik (2006), as a self-propelled
vehicle use on streets and highways, most of its models have four wheels and run on internal combustion
engines or steam engines. It was invented by a German named Karl Friedrich Benz during the early '90s.
Trucks in the 19th century were mostly made for utility. In an article written by Jerry Spelic (2016),
inventor Alexander Winton came up with the idea of trucks when he sold his first car which created for
the need to be delivered to the buyers, and led him to the concept of inventing trucks. Moving on, the
concept of buses started in the 18th century and was known to be the omnibus and later on abbreviated to
“bus”. The name "bus" was only then recognized during the late 1950s since its services started in larger
towns. During the 20th century until the 21st century, big changes in the land transportation system arose,
starting with electric cars. An electric car or electric drive vehicle is an alternative fuel automobile. In the
article Electric Vehicles Definition (n.d.), it states that electric cars are run by one or more electric motors
and energies being stored in the cars' batteries. After a few years, hybrid cars were popularized by
Ferdinand Porsche. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (2018), hybrid cars are vehicles than
runs on both electric motor and an internal combustion engine. Since the end of the 20th-century vehicles
that run on engines changed the lives of humans forever. During the 21st century, self-driving cars or also
known as autonomous vehicles were invented. Rouse (2019) characterized self-driving cars by its usage
of combination sensors, cameras, and radars to travel on the road without the operation of a human being.

With the innovations in the said field, it simply shows that it benefits the people since its main
goal is to help peoples to travel faster and bridge the gap between cities. In an article written by Dr. Jean-
Paul Rodrigue for economic activities, transportation allows access a workforce, reach suppliers and
service customers. With improvements in transportation, interactions within the workforce became more
effective and the costs of distribution usually decline with the derived competitive benefits. Most
individuals have extensive experience when it comes to transportation especially the regular users or the
commuters. Transportation is the means to access employment, goods, services, leisure, and social
networks and using transportation is often a social experience, at times negative (e.g. comfort, safety).
Despite the improvements it brought to our world, several aspects of land transportation are still putting
our environment at risk. Transport is a major user of energy and burns most of the world's petroleum.
Thus, creates air pollution and paving its way as the largest contributor to global warming. The
advancement in technology led us to the efficient land transportation systems, but we must also consider
saving our environment and think of ways to lessen its harmful effects.

Word count: 946

REFERENCES:

Automobile. (n.d.). In Wordnik.com. Retrieved from https://www.wordnik.com/words/automobile

Botelho, B., Lutkevich, B., Rouse, M. (2019). TechTarget. Retrieved from
https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/definition/driverless-car
Electric Vehicle News. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://electricvehiclesnews.com/Definition/description.htm
Gascoigne, B. (2001). History World. Retrieved from
http://historyworld.net/about/sourcesResponsive.asp
Rodrigue, J-P et al. (2017). The Geography of Transport Systems, Hofstra University, Department of
Global Studies & Geography. Retrieved from https://transportgeography.org.
Spelic, J. (2016, June 15). The Early History of Semi-Trucks. Retrieved from
https://www.partnership.com/blog/post/the-early-history-of-semi-trucks.
Transportation. (n.d.). In OxfordDictionaries.com. Retrieved from
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/transportation.
Union of Concerned Scientists. (2018). How Do Hybrid Cars and Trucks Work. Retrieved from
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-do-hybrid-cars-and-trucks-work.
World Wide Words. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/omnibus.htm.