Safety of Four Modes of Transportation

Transportation Safety

There are a number of different modes of transportation, and each mode has different safety considerations. This paper will look at road, rail, sea and air freight in particular. Obviously, there will be some safety issues that can affect any mode of transport -- human error or mechanical breakdown can happen to anything, anytime. But within each mode there will be unique risks, and it is important to understand what those risks are, in order that they be addressed effectively.

Rail transport is generally considered to be one of the safer modes, but rail accidents are surprisingly common. The particular issues relating to rail tend to be issues with track maintenance, and trains taking corners too fast, both resulting in derailment. The Federal Railroad Administration provides oversight on railroad safety issues, in order to minimize the number of accidents that occur on the rails. However, derailments still occur, and they can not only disrupt the shipment on the derailed train, but they can also affect the other trains subsequent, as the track will likely be out of commission for a long period of time following a derailment. Thus, derailment carries with it both direct and indirect risk.

Trucking is one of the most popular ways to deliver freight, largely because trucks can deliver point-to-point more effectively than other modes. However, trucks have risk associated with operating on public roadways. Operator error is more common with road freight, but there are also the operators of other vehicles that need to be taken into account -- collisions are common in road freight, but relatively uncommon in the other major modes of transportation. While a truck is usually well-equipped to emerge from a collision relatively unscathed, trucks are also vulnerable to things like jackknifing. Further, trucks can be slowed by other accidents on the roads, similar to what occurs to trains when there is a derailment. While trucks are more flexible in their options for circumventing these delays, such delays are also a lot more common.

In terms of accidents, air freight is probably the safest mode of transport. When there is an accident, however, the freight will assuredly be lost. However, mechanical risks are much greater with air freight than they are with other forms, and air freight is more susceptible to weather delays, particularly in the winter, when aircraft can be grounded for days in some extreme circumstances. Air freight often travels on commercial airliners, so there is sometimes risk associated with that lack of exclusivity, whereas other forms of freight are almost always on commercial vehicles only.

Marine transportation has its own risks. Weather -- major storms in particular -- can have more of an impact on marine shipments, and there are examples of ships that have been lost, or containers that have gone overboard. Maritime shipping also bears the unique risks associated with being international in nature. Ships often operate outside of any national jurisdiction, and therefore are not governed by any laws, other than maritime law, and in many cases this creates unique risk (Kristiansen, 2013). Aircraft often travel across borders, but they are governed by more strict rules, and they certainly face much lower risk of international criminality as the result of where they are in the sky.