Transports role in the future economies of the world

Across time and geography, transport has been the base on which growth and innovation sit. The 18-century expansion of the US railways system fed the passion for expanding boundaries around the globe. Companies were been able to risk traveling further into the jungle by getting insurance.

In this century, we are hit with the realization that expansion must eventually come to an end. We begin to feel the limits of our resources and geography especially in the face of massive population growth, changing demographics which imply changing needs (which are in effect harder to meet) and environmental concerns such as global warming.

The global transport system has been evolving fast which means a change in the risk dynamics of not just the global transport landscape but also the regional one. It is difficult to attain sustained growth without transport systems because they connect people and enable movement of goods in a timely manner.

Yet all countries in the world have managed to attain different stages of development in their mobility because they must be able to balance the environmental and economic demands with the sustainability initiatives. They must be able to answer the question of sustainable transport systems in a dynamic world.

As transport trends are shaped by the popular political and social trends of the time, it follows that economies are affected by the same things. For example, if people in a country decided that they would eat only the fruits that are in season, it would mean a decrease in imports.

A more practical example is the growth of Dubai as an attraction site for tourists of all capacities such as business and medical in the recent years. This has meant an increase in the need for improvement in the transport infrastructure which means more projects in place to that effect.

On a global scale, few policymakers show the ability to formulate regulations that are future-oriented. This means that few of the systems that are formed as a result will be resilient the environmental changes in the long run.

When markets are growing fast such as in China, trends begin to be set by governments rather than what consumers prefer. However, we must be able to remember that the transportation concerns of the past will be different from those that will be experienced in the future. The future issues will call for more weight being put on a different set of risks such as cyber crimes.

A resilient network will mean a resilient economy.

The resilient network must be able to assess the risks of their present systems to the future and then address these risks as best as it can without compromising human health and the economic value of the systems in and of themselves.

If we are to be good students of history, we will realize that it is possible to use technological innovation to solve problems and create others, then use the same innovation to solve the new ones. Change is not a short term happening but it is a gradual shift that all transport systems that will not remain obsolete to future economies must be able to make.