Transportation geography

Transport geography, also transportation geography, is a branch of geography that investigates the movement and connections between people, goods and information on the Earth's surface.

Transportation geography detects, describes, and explains the Earth's surface's transportation spaces regarding location, substance, form, function and genesis, and asks for the effects of transportation on other spatial processes, land use and land cover patterns. Moreover, it contributes to transport, urban and regional planning.

Transportation is fundamental to the economic activity of exchange. Therefore, transport geography and economic geography are largely interrelated. At the most basic level, humans move and thus interact with each other by walking, but transportation geography typically studies more complex and regional or global systems of transportation that include multiple interconnected modes like public transit, personal cars, bicycles, freight railroads, the Internet, airplanes and more. Such systems are increasingly urban in character. Thus, transport and urban geography are closely intertwined. Cities are very much shaped, indeed created, by the types of exchange and interaction facilitated by movement. Increasingly since the 19th century, transportation has been seen as a way cities, countries or firms compete with each other in a variety of spaces and contexts.

In terms of transport modes, the primary forms are air, road, water, and rail. Each form has its own cost associated with speed of movement, as a result of friction and place of origin and destination. Ships are generally used for moving large amounts of goods. Maritime shipping is able to carry more around the world at a cheaper cost. For moving people who prefer to minimize travel time and maximize comfort and convenience, road, and air are the most common modes in use. A railroad is often used to transport goods in areas away from water. Railroads may also be the source of transportation for people as well.

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