Transport as a whoIe is a sector of national economy. The economy is made up of so many sectors covering social, economic, political and defense, which have been grouped into government ministries. From time immemorial, transportation had played vital role in the carriage of goods and people ensuring effective utilization and utilities of goods ard people as noted from the time of agricultural revolution in the Untied Kingdom to the colonial administration in Nigeria with the advent of importation, exportation and discovery of petroleum in the 1950s which stimulated industrial and commercial developments, generation and attraction of raw material, finished and semi-finished goods. Transport adds impetus to all the sectors of the economy, and not much would have been achieved if transport were not developed peri-persu with other sectors of the economy. The important role of transport in the economic development of a place, a society or a nation had been noticed even from the time of industrial revolution in Britain and of course other countries.
As a sector, transport has many sub-sectors and these sub-sectors form the modes of transport which include Air, Rail, Road, Inland Waterways, Sea and Pipeline transport modes. Recently there is a Cable transport mode. Transport is a system because it is a holistic facility with sub-systems known as modes and each mode of transport (sub-system) has components including:
1. The way (route or medium)
2. The terminals (point of origin and destination)
3. The unit of carriage (space for load)
4. The unit of propulsion (motive power)
These components must work effectively and efficiently to produce transport service which are supplied by the operators and demanded by the users. It is this service that is being demanded by the users and supplied by the operators that is transport service.
The demand for transport service is a derived demand, which means that transport is not demanded for direct cousumption but for what it helps us to achieve.
Transport is demanded for social; economic, political, and military/defence purposes. Therefore, for any transport demand, there is purpose or need which one wants to fulfill. The purpose includes movement from a residential area to any of the other land-uses or activity areas, or between various land-uses for the l satisfaction of needs ranging from social, economic, political, cultural, military/defence reasons. Therefore, for any journey made or for any movement of goods, people and services, there is a purpose and it is this purpose that transport helps to satisfy, bridging the gap between producers/suppliers and consumers/users thereby, increasing utility.
Transport as a service must have qualities including: safety, speed, capacity, frequency, regularity comprehensiveness, responsibility, comfort, ancillary terminal facilities and acceptable price. These affect the quality of services given by any operator and also affect the demand or elasticity of any user.
Transport is a business and as an industry it has special qualities and peculiarities which differentiate it from other industries and call for special management style.
These include:
1. The demand for transport is a derived demand.
2. Transport has a monopoly or quasi-monopoly characteristics.
3. Transport supply is homogenous, hence has the tendency of perishability.
4. Transport is often characterized with joints costs.
5. Transport generates social costs and environmental externalities.
6. In most cases, costing and pricing of transport create problems.
7. It is characterized and subjected to government policies, controls and public decisions.
8. It is affected by seasonality, peaks and off peaks (troughs) variations.
These traffic fluctuations have associated problems which managers must design strategies to overcome.