Sustainable transport is the movement of people and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. Transport can be public, where operators provide scheduled services, or private.
Types of vehicles
In general, following vehicles types can be distinguished:
- water vehicle (includes supersurface water vehicles (regular or hydrofoiling), subsurface vehicles (regular or supercavitating))
- ground vehicle (includes supersurface ground vehicles, subsurface ground vehicles)
- air vehicle (includes lighter-than-air air vehicles and heavier-than-air air vehicles)
Most vehicles above can be either
- privately owned; see personal water vehicle, personal ground vehicle, personal air vehicle
- public: see public transport. Public transport vehicles includes cabs, trains, bicycles, buses, trucks, helicopters, and aircraft (renting services).
Appropriate use of vehicle types
To determine the most fuel-efficient vehicle type in a specific situation, see See Appropriate methods of transport
To determine a vehicle type based on various factors (including cost, speed, ...) use the table below:
Mode | Single journey range (km) / optimal (feasible) | Speed of journey within optimal range | Cost | Mass transport capacity | Reach/ Coverage | Safety | On-demand | Infrastructure investment | Comfort | Customer Acceptance | Fuel Efficiency | Environmental, aesthetic and social impacts | Land Use |
Walking | 0-2 (0-6) | ||||||||||||
Bicycle | 0-6 (0-30) | ||||||||||||
Motorized bicycle | 0-6 (0-30) | ||||||||||||
Car | 3-300 (0-1500) | (urban) (other) | |||||||||||
Motorcycle | 3-100 (0-1500) | ||||||||||||
Bus (urban) | 0.2-20 (0.2-50) | ||||||||||||
Coach (long distance) | 1-300 (1-3000) | ||||||||||||
Urban Rail/ Metro | 1-20 (0.3-50) | ||||||||||||
Conventional Rail | 10-300 (0.3-5000) | ||||||||||||
High Speed Rail/ Maglev | 100-800 (10-10,000) | ||||||||||||
Boat | 1-200 (0.2-20,000) | ||||||||||||
Aeroplane | 600-20,000 (100-20,000) | ||||||||||||
Helicopter | 10-500 (0-3000) | ||||||||||||
Airship | 300-2000 (50-20,000) | ? | |||||||||||
Cable Car | 0.3-10 (0.3-50) | ||||||||||||
PRT | 1-100 (0.3-500) | ? | |||||||||||
Elevator/Lift | 0.1-0.5 (0.02-0.5) | ||||||||||||
Escalator | 0.1-0.5 (0.02-1) |
Tweaking old vehicles
Old vehicles can be made completely ecologic by means of changes to the propulsion technology. These changes include changing IC-engines to run on a emissionless fuel, or swapping out the engine alltogether for ie a electric motor, ...
See also
- SkyCab and Shweeb: railed vehicles suspended above the ground that can be directed to a specific destination (unlike most public transport vehicles as city buses, ...)
- Electric vehicle
- Hybrid vehicles