Road and sea transport systems comparison

Road and sea transport systems have quite a lot of similarities and differences in main components, system characteristics, and operational performance.

Transport system components can be viewed from both internal and external perspectives. When it comes to an internal perspective, it divides into physical components, operators, operaand ting plans. The physical components are the main components in the transport system, and operators and operating planning is the symbol of operational performance.

From the perspective of physical components, road and ,sea transport systems have some similarities. To be exactly, in terms of infrastructure link they both use scheduled routes, and their equipment includes maintenance equipment, cargo hold etc. Most of vehicles (motor, car, ship) in these systems use fuel engine generates power as power system and their fuel is petroleum while the control, meanwhile some of vehicles in these two transport systems also use new energy including solar energy, wind energy. Meanwhile communications and locations system of these vehicles in road and sea transport systems share similarity. Exactly, they both use steering wheel to control and communicate with others through walkie-talkie and telephone while GPS is used as usual locations system. Many people also rely on experience or geographical characteristics to determine the direction of the vehicles.

These two transport systems also have some differences in physical components. Stations of road transport system contains car park, bus terminal and livestock shed (like racecourse), and the main vehicles are bicycle, motorcar, bus, horses. However, vehicles in sea transport are ships including yacht, freight, passenger liner, and its stations are wharf and port. When it comes to equipment, for road transport system, motorcycles and bicycles need helmets, goggles, and other protective equipment, while cars need spare tire, jack (being changed tire), spanner (repairing the engine), snow chains (to prevent wheel slipping), and horses need saddle, bridle, storage frame. As for sea transport systems, in terms of equipment, they need life jacket, life buoy, anchor, signal flag. Except that most road transport vehicles use fuel engines, a few vehicles use different power systems, such as stepping on the bicycles pedal and using bioenergy for horses, while their fuel are both food. Meanwhile, power systems of sailboat are sail and propeller, and its furl is wind in sea transport systems. There are also differences in control. As for horses in road transport system, their directions were guided by the masters, while for sailboats in sea transport system, their directions depend on rudder direction.

From the perspective of operators, most of the road and sea transportation systems are similar. As for labor, they both need divers, workers (maintenance equipment，load and unload good)，police officers (system security, maintenance order). They both own organized labor, labor union, which can safeguard the legitimate interests of workers like working time limit, normal holidays, prescribed wage payment, life safety protection. In terms of managers (knowledge workers)，they all make strategic planning including making real-time plans based on climate change(storm impact on sea transportation and snow impact on road transportation) and current risks(changes in people's needs and emergence of fashionable things), and new routes need to be planned when emerging industries emerge or national policies change. At the same time, the managers in both two systems need to do well in marketing. To be exactly, they need to think about what customers need like daily necessities, luxury goods, household appliances, etc. so that they can provide universal, direct, frequent, and high-quality service to transportation customers according to different income groups to form a tailor-made transportation system. They also know what the company should do to gain a larger market share and then through the transportation system provide convenient transportation and they basically concerned with maximizing the revenues that flow to the company, for example harbor city is developed aquaculture industry that managers will arrange more ship and cars to carry the sea product to other cities which have large demand for aquatic products and make reasonable distribution in order to own more profit. Meanwhile, managers need to consider operations like bus scheduling and ship cancellation or delay to ensure each transport can be fully loaded to maximize benefits. They want to run an efficient and cost-effective operation like using as few vehicles as possible to carry as many people or goods as possible. Managers also exert pressure on marketing personnel, such as performance appraisal and task indicators, to ensure stable income. Operators also includes many skilled employees like scientific research team who research and develop high-tech technology to improve the transportation efficiency of the system, analytic quantitative research operation group who reasonably calculate and arrange the flow direction and flow of vehicles, administrative staffs who deal with laws, finance, labor relations.

In operators, there are also differences between the road and sea transport systems. When it comes to labor, there are toll collectors and fare in road systems when cars pass the toll station, and many labors are responsible for road construction, while navigator and lighthouse are significant parts in sea systems. As for managers, in sea systems, people prefer to consider more expensive, untimely, quantitative products, like lobsters, famous brand bags, petroleum because the cost and risks of shipping is higher. It is obvious that sea transport systems are suitable for long distance, and it is necessary for administrative staffs to understand the law of the sea, and international law even needs to coordinate with other national government departments. However, as a manager of road system, their requirements for the value of the goods to be delivered will be relatively lower because of lower cost and the area where passengers and goods are transported is wider. Road transportation faces complex terrain, which requires higher technical requirements for operators.

When it comes to operating plans, their common points are as follows: firstly, they both need to account for the vehicle distribution because of flow imbalance in a day so it is necessary to redistribute vehicle around the system. For example, more public transport should be arranged in the morning peak and evening peak, and on weekends or holidays, more cruise ships and yachts should be arranged during the daytime. At the same time, vehicles transporting goods should be arranged at night as far as possible to avoid excessive congestion during the day. Then, connection patterns also should be taken account of. People need to calculate time about transfer from one vehicle to another so that more vehicles can be arranged to transport more goods at the same time. Systems both need to own sensitivity to bad weather like that rainstorms may cause landslides and block roads in road transport system, and sudden temperature drop will cause sea ice. They both need routing and scheduling of all vehicles involved so that make temporary changes when unexpected situation happened including sudden weather change, national policy change and war outbreak. They also concentrate on cost vs level of service (LOS), for example, in large cities or transport hubs, operators should arrange more traffic routes, and they will provide different services to different customers, like providing high-quality (private cruise and cars) services for the rich and providing public services (public car and ferry steamer) to the masses. Meanwhile, these systems need to have contingency planning like the methods to deal with changes of demand for service and accidents, and which company need to pay for losses. For this reason, both systems will adopt to buying insurance to reduce the risk of damage before large-scale transportation of goods.

On the contrary, road and sea transport systems also have many differences in operating plans. At first, most people do not need to go to and get off work by boat, for sea transport system, it is unnecessary to schedule too closely, and schedule adherence is more important in freight operations than passenger operations. However, schedule adherence is as important as in freight operations than passenger operations in road transport system, on account of that, public transport (especially in urban traffic) is the main means of commuting and either passengers or goods need to travel between cities and villages through the road system. About crew assignments, in road transport systems, more people will be assigned to maintain traffic order and road construction, while in another systems, crew members are mainly responsible for security patrol, loading and unloading and they have no stable rest time due to the long duration of sailing and unpredictable maritime weather. Then, in the field of vehicle distribution, for road transport system, it mainly depends on the number of goods to be transported and the distance to be transported. To be exactly, for short distance and less goods, or few people, motorcycle, tricycle, carriage may be chosen. For medium distance and medium quantity of transportation, cars with less than seven seats are preferred to be selected, while it is obvious that trucks and large tour buses are suitable for more goods and passengers to travel farther. As for sea transport system, in addition to extreme distance and very little cargo transportation, wooden paddle boats and sailboats will be required, in most cases, freighters are used to transport goods and cruise ships to transport tourists.

When it comes to transportation system characterization, road and sea transport systems share quantity of similarities. Firstly, public ownership or operation exist in both transport system such as bus, intercity transportation in road transportation systems and passenger and cargo ship companies operated by the state in sea transport system. Then, it is obvious that private ownership also occurs in them. For example, there are many private cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and even carriages in road transport system, and private cruise, yacht, sailing boat exist in sea transport system. Meanwhile, joint ownership is a common way in transportation system. Exactly, the government usually adapt to subsidize businessmen to establish companies and invest in companies to form joint ownership so that the company has limited autonomy and the government has the right to veto. For example, in sea transportation, ports jointly invested by government and private companies. Under normal circumstances, the company can normally use the port and use the port to transport goods without other interference. However, when the country experience wars or an emergency, such as an earthquake and super tsunami, at these times, the state will unconditionally expropriate ports and use them to achieve emergency response. Next, both systems have intercity transportation like in sea transportation system ships can commute in different harbors, and trucks, private cars and tour buses can travel between cities in road transport system.

On the other hand, in transportation system characterization, road and sea transport systems are different in many ways. At first, sea transport systems hardly exist in urban and regional areas because most cities are not close to the sea while on the contrary, they rely on road transport system including transportation of goods and tourism. Meanwhile, road transport system will not happen in international transportation because there is a distance limit (fuel limit) for the vehicle to travel, and international transportation can’t do without sea transport system, which is related to trade between countries, and to a large extent, there is no space limit.

In conclusion, in main components, road and sea transport systems share more differences, while when it comes operational performance and system characteristics, they have more similarities.