Kenneth J. Button
Director, Center for Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics

Prosperity is not a sufficient condition for peace and possibly not a necessary one, but it is unquestionably a factor that can help in achieving peace and in its maintenance. It is seldom prosperity in itself that reduces tensions, but rather the absence of extreme differences in levels of prosperity. If all are largely poor there is a certain general acceptance of the state of affairs, it is generally only when small groups emerge as significantly better off, and the differential persists, that frictions arise. Of, course it is better if everyone had a high material standard of living, but the general point, as recognized in the Brundtland Report, is that social sustainability largely depends on an acceptable degree of equality.

Transport is a facilitator. Of itself it does nothing but move things; it is only when there is a demand for this movement that it adds value and contributes to prosperity by allowing the more efficient combining of factors of production and access to markets for final goods. Putting a road or an airport randomly on the landscape seldom helps anyone. Deciding where transport can add value is far from easy, however, and inevitably the public and private sectors when investing make mistakes. These decisions are still more of an art than a science, despite advances in technical planning methods and improved decision-tools. But in the right place and in the right form transport unquestionably can contribute enormously to the development of regions and allow them to reap their full economic potential.

Transport takes many forms; each has its comparative advantage in different circumstances. Additionally most transport is multimodal and the challenge then becomes one of ensuring appropriate modes for each segment of a complex trip; how much by road, how much by rail or whatever. Road transport, for example, because of its flexibility and relative ease of affording interconnects, offers particular advantages for higher value, low volume commodities over short and medium distances as well as for collection and final delivery. The steady economic growth in the US since the 1960s, for example, was partly facilitated by the construction of the Federal Highway System that linked the major US domestic markets and also these markets to border crossings.

Given the prevailing trends in industrial processes, together with developments in supply chain logistics, most notably the minimization of inventory holding, this makes the road mode particularly attractive for modern manufacturing industries that have greater flexibility in their location choices than extractive or primary industries. Road transport is also important, both directly, but also because of the links it can provide to major airports or rail terminals, for many service industries where contact between highly skilled manpower is important. Its efficiency in meeting the “last-mile” requirements of freight movements is vital to the supply chain.

From the economic perspective, road transport, in the correct context, allows for the full potential of regions and cities to be developed and also to facilitate the mobility of key labor resources. This may directly mean migration, but increasingly it can mean individuals commuting longer distances as economic growth takes place. Socially, it helps keep geographically spread families in contact. Beyond the rather conventional, static economic criteria, transport also allows for the movement of ideas and the spread of “technical progress”. Ideas are at the forefront of economic development today and to prevent areas or nations lagging in this respect interpersonal communications are important. In many cases, road transport can act as a facilitation of such interactions either directly or in combination with other modes and modern telecommunications networks.

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