Transportation Sector: Benefits, Drawbacks, and Sustainability

This essay explores the dual nature of the transportation sector, acknowledging its crucial role in driving economic activities and globalization while also addressing its significant drawbacks, primarily pollution. It highlights the economic dependence on transportation for global trade and the connectivity it fosters among people, as well as the negative impacts such as resource exploitation, air and noise pollution, and contribution to global warming. The essay suggests promoting public transport, cleaner fuels like CNG, and electric or hybrid vehicles to mitigate pollution and enhance sustainability within the transportation sector, advocating for a balanced approach that leverages technology and alternative strategies to minimize environmental impact.

Running head: TRANSPORTATION SECTOR
Transportation sector
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
Transportation acts as the primary tool of driving the current generation. This is due to
the fact that without having any mode of transportation available, the entire concept of
globalization will get affected due to less connectivity. However, in this case also there are
number of opinions getting raised against transportation with the major accusation is pollution
(Waisman, Guivarch and Lecocq, pp. 106-129). Even though transportation is the integral part of
the current generation, but their few drawbacks are affecting their effectiveness. There can a few
positive and negative elements for transportation that can be evaluated with the help of different
opinions of the academic journals.
This essay will discuss about the benefits and drawbacks of transportation. In accordance
to these, a few possible changes with the sustainable use of transportation will also be discussed.
Benefits of transportation
One of the major importances of transportation in the current time is dependence of the
economic activities. According to Kanemoto, global economy is heavily dependent on the
transportation sector as the goods exported and imported across the world are being moved
through transportation process. Thus, according to the authors, transportation is the integral part
of the global trading and business state of affairs. On the other hand, it is stated by Litman that
apart from promoting the global trade and business but also transportation is helping in creating
connectivity among the people. This is due to the fact that people from different regions can get
connected with one another with the help of effective transportation process. However, in this
article, the author focused majorly on transportation planning, which denotes that proper

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planning and integration among the different modes of transportation will help in move people
extensively.
Drawbacks of transportation
There are number of drawbacks of transportation also being identified by different
authors and one of the major disadvantages of transportation is pollution. This is due to the
reason that almost all the available modes of transportation are using fossil fuels and causing
pollution. According to Vafa-Arani et al., transportation sector is causing exploitation of natural
resources such as petroleum based resources and also causing emission of harmful pollutants by
means of burning these fuels. The authors have also stated that emission of these pollutants is
causing huge adverse impact on the environment, which is in turn affecting the entire
biodiversity.
However, on the other hand, Demir et al. stated that transportation especially the freight
transportation is causing noise pollution other than the air pollution. This is also affecting the
hearing elements of the human beings also with initiating other disorders such as anxiety and
permanent hearing loss. According to the authors, with the increase in the level and intensity of
transportation system with time, the level of pollution is also increasing. This will have serious
impact in the long run. All these articles are mainly focused on identifying and evaluating a
particular type of impact from the emergence of transportation. However, according to Mueller
et al., increased pollution of any types from transportation process is leading to the emergence of
global warming. This is due to the reason that increase in air pollution is increasing the average
global temperature and is causing heat waves across the world. Thus, one of the major root
causes for the global warming is the pollution from the transportation.

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Reduction of use of transportation
As discussed in the previous section, transportation is the integral part of the current
scenario and thus it can be entirely prevented. However, new technologies and paradigm can be
initiated in order to reduce the emission of pollution from transportation. It is recommended that
public transport should be promoted more over any personal modes of transport. This is due to
the reason that public transport can move more people at once and thus the average carbon
emission per person will get lowered compared to the personal vehicles. In addition, reduction in
the number of personal vehicles will also reduce the congestion in the road and will help in
reducing the carbon emission.
It is also recommended that cleaner fuel such as CNG should be promoted to reduce the
pollution from the burning of fuels. In addition, electric and hybrid vehicles should also be
promoted, which is have less emission compared to the conventional vehicles (Al-Alawi &
Bradley, pp. 190-203). This essay concludes that transportation process cannot be avoided but
the rate of pollution can be reduced with the help of newer technologies and approaches. This
will help in gaining sustainability from the perspective of transportation sector.

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Reference
Al-Alawi, Baha M., and Thomas H. Bradley. "Review of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric
vehicle market modeling studies." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 21 (2013): 190-
203.
Demir, Emrah, et al. "A selected review on the negative externalities of the freight
transportation: Modeling and pricing." Transportation research part E: Logistics and
transportation review 77 (2015): 95-114.
Kanemoto, Yoshitsugu. "Evaluating benefits of transportation in models of new economic
geography." Economics of Transportation 2.2-3 (2013): 53-62.
Litman, Todd. "The new transportation planning paradigm." Institute of Transportation
Engineers. ITE Journal 83.6 (2013): 20.
Mueller, Natalie, et al. "Health impact assessment of active transportation: a systematic
review." Preventive medicine 76 (2015): 103-114.
Vafa-Arani, Hamed, et al. "A system dynamics modeling for urban air pollution: A case study of
Tehran, Iran." Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment31 (2014): 21-36.
Waisman, Henri-David, Céline Guivarch, and Franck Lecocq. "The transportation sector and
low-carbon growth pathways: modelling urban, infrastructure, and spatial determinants of
mobility." Climate Policy 13.sup01 (2013): 106-129.