1. Food Gathering Little movement of goods
--------------
Trackways Irrigation Rivers Sea
2. Agriculture . Channels
----------- . . Boats Boats
: . . .
3. Simple Technology :Pack horse : . .
----------------- | : . .
| : : .
4. City State | : : :Sail
---------- | Piped : ::
|Roads Water : ||.
5. Empire (Roman) || || : ||:
-------------- |Wagons Aqueducts |Canals |||
||| ||| |: |||
---------------------------------------------------------------------
. : :
6. Medieval (Europe) . : :Sail
----------------- . : |:
: ||
7. Industrial :Turnpikes Canals ||Steam
Revolution |:Rail : ||:
---------- |:. | ||:
||: | |::
||| : |:|
8. Consumer Society ||| Piped . |:|
---------------- ||| Water . |:|Iron
||| . . |:|Ships
||| :Gas |.||
||| :. | ||
9. Mass Production |||Lorry |. | ||
Society |||| |: | ||Special-
--------------- ||:| |: Air | ||.ist
||:| ||Oil . | ||.Ships
||:|Motor ||pipe : | ||:
||.|Way ||lines : | |||
||.|| ||. | | |||
10.Post Industrial || || ||| | | |||
Society
--------------- Balloons? Sub-
Sail? marines?
The Constant Trend of Distribution, of increased trade and increased distance, is largely the pattern in this History. There is some increase in the media for the transport of goods, and an increasing technology of the different media - and their rise and fall as certain technologies gain ascendancy. So far only sea transport has consistently grown - although different types have rises or declined.
It is probably the case that the time taken for traded goods to pass from producers to consumers reduces slightly with economic level, although the distances travelled increases. This may be a Constant Trend, but it is the only new one deduced from the Sector.
The end of the previous diagram gives a basic description of the movement
of goods in the coming period, and the likely shares taken by the different
transport media.
Decline of Rail share is seen as continuing (it is
already small for goods transport). Though there may be scope to link road
and rail together - through effectively carrying the whole lorry over a
large part of its journey at greater speeds and lower cost (largely
through centrally generated power of the rail system). A start has been
made in rail transport of containers. But it has not really been
successful - the flexibility of the lorry and the road network surpasses
rail (hence the possibility of transporting the whole lorry in a
drive-on drive-off mode, which removes marshalling and handling problems
and retains the flexibility of the lorry). Some such link will be
necessary if rail is to survive (at least as a goods carrier). Road
congestion problems are seen as being solved by the
Computer-Media.
Air cargo is likely to grow for the higher value goods, as the cost of air
continues to reduce. It now seems doubtful if air speeds will increase -
anyway for the foreseeable future. The bulk however will go by sea for
international trade.
There is a development of packaging, particularly at the Tertiary level
(from Packaging & the Distribution Process)
- and an increasing
automation of packaging build-up, routing to customer upon their needs,
and optimal loading of vehicles, packaging breakdown and re-build up in
the distribution system. It is probable that these developments
will reduce the time
that goods are held in stock in various parts of the distribution (and
manufacturing) system - and continue to reduce the time that goods
take to pass from producer to consumer.
To return to your Contents page click your URL password
(drop down menu below the current URL)
MOVEMENT OF GOODS - IMPACTED SCENARIO