chapter 3 transportation technolgy. 1pdf

Transportation technology and systems form the technological backbone of modern logistics and mobility. They enable the seamless movement of goods, people, and information across vast networks, connecting cities, regions, and continents. In a world defined by globalization and digital transformation, transportation is no longer just about moving physical items — it’s about managing the flow of data, decisions, and resources in real time.

This chapter explores how technology and information systems have revolutionized transportation, transforming it from a purely physical process into an intelligent, integrated system. It highlights how the use of digital tools, automation, and smart infrastructure enhances efficiency, sustainability, and safety across all modes of transport.

Transportation as the Critical Link in Supply Chains

Transportation is the connecting thread in the supply chain — the element that binds production, distribution, and consumption. No matter how sophisticated manufacturing or warehousing may be, goods have no value unless they reach the right place at the right time. The flow of food, fuel, medical supplies, and industrial materials depends entirely on efficient transport systems.

Industries with complex logistics networks, such as automotive, pharmaceuticals, and e-commerce, face enormous risks if transportation flows are disrupted. A single delay in a shipment can cause production stoppages, stock shortages, or missed sales opportunities. As a result, companies now rely heavily on transportation technology to maintain control, ensure safety, and achieve timely and cost-effective delivery.

The central idea is that modern transportation is not just about physical movement — it’s about information management. The ability to track shipments, analyze performance, and make informed decisions depends on technology-driven systems that bring visibility and intelligence to every step of the process.

Information as the Lifeblood of Transportation Systems

Supply chains operate through three interrelated flows: products, money, and information. Of these, information is the most powerful because it allows decision-makers to coordinate the other two. Transportation systems generate enormous amounts of data — shipment statuses, vehicle locations, delivery times, and customer feedback — and turning this data into actionable insights is what makes modern logistics efficient.

To function effectively, transportation management depends on three essential information requirements:

High-quality information – data must be accurate, timely, and reliable.

Multidirectional flow – information must move seamlessly between suppliers, carriers, and customers.

Actionability – the data must support real decisions, such as routing, scheduling, and cost optimization.

These elements ensure that managers have full control over transport operations and can react quickly to disruptions. For example, real-time vehicle tracking systems allow logistics

1. TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY
AND
SYSTEMS
Chapter 3

2. INTRODUCTION
•Transportation is the critical linking mechanism in the supply chain. It
ensures that food, fuel, and medical supplies are readily available at the
point of demand.
•Some industries have more to lose than others when it comes to
transportation flow not managed probably.
•With so much product in motion between worldwide, from the
origin point and destination point, technology is needed to
maintain control and promote safe, timely, and cost-efficient
transportation.
•This chapter focuses on the role of information and technology in
transportation. It is intended to highlight the key information
issues and tools that facilitate perfect delivery processes.

3. INFORMATION REQUIREMENT
•Supply chains rely upon three flows—product, money, and
information. Nowhere is the information aspect more relevant than
in transportation.
•With so much going on in transportation, it is hard to maintain control.
Hence, transportation systems are important as they provide you
information that allows such a control
•Effective transportation management and decision making depends on
three fundamental information requirements.
•First, the information available to transportation professionals
must meet quality standards to support fact-based analysis.
•Second, the information must readily flow within and between
organizations “Multidirectional Flow”.
•Third, the information must be actionable to support
transportation decision making.

4. 1-QUALITY STANDARD
•Information quality is a critical characteristic of the vast amounts of data flowing across a
transportation network.
•For information to be useful, information must display a variety of key characteristics
1.Accuracy: Transportation information must depict reality. A true picture of freight status and
location that is free of errors facilitates logical decision making. In contrast, decisions based on
inaccurate information can lead to delivery delays, inventory shortages, and unhappy customers.
2.Accessibility“Easy of Access”: information must be available to supply chain professionals who
have a legitimate need for it, regardless of their role, location, or employer.
3.Relevancy“important to the matter at hand”: Irrelevant data and unnecessary details must be
avoided as they hide important details, waste time, and distract decision makers.
4.Timeliness: transportation information must be up-to-date and available in a reasonable time
frame.
5.Transferability: Information also needs to be transferred quickly between locations and
systems in the transportation network to facilitate accessibility and timeliness.
6.Usability“Must be fit to be used”: Information is useful if it can drive effective decision-making.
7.Reliability: The information contained in transportation reports and transaction data sets must
come from trustworthy internal and external sources.
8.Value: Information technology investments that enhance knowledge and generate tangible
benefits.

5. MULTIDIRECTIONAL FLOW
•The engagement of multiple stakeholders in transportation planning
and decision making drives a need for multidirectional
information flows across the network.
•Transportation providers must also keep in the information
loop “sequences of instructions until certain condition is reached”
regarding upstream and downstream customer requirements
•A failure to communicate with service providers can lead to
fulfillment delays and customer dissatisfaction
DECISION SUPPORT
•With rapid delivery service becoming the norm in many supply chains,
access to transportation information must expand.
•This intelligence “information gathering” is needed for strategic decision
making, tactical planning, routine decision making, and execution and
transaction processing.

6. DECISION SUPPORT
•Strategic decision-making focuses on the creation of long-range
transportation plans that are aligned with the organization’s mission and
strategies
•Tactical planning focuses on cross-organization linkages and
transportation activity coordination.
•Routine decision-making leverages operational level information for
rules-based decision making. For example, an automated transportation
routing guide uses a shipment’s origin, destination, product characteristics,
weight, dimensions, rates, and service-level requirements data to
recommend an appropriate mode and carrier.
•Execution and transaction processing uses fundamental information
from supply chain databases, customer profiles, transportation routing
guides, and related sources to complete fulfillment and delivery activities

7. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
•Transportation professionals need easy access to data in a
usable format, accurately analyze the data, and properly
apply the output to their decisions.
•Fortunately, transportation professionals no longer need to
manage these tasks with pencil, paper, landline telephones,
and so on.
•Powerful software is readily available to help both
transportation providers and freight shippers make key
decisions, proactively manage freight flows, and
simultaneously achieve optimal cost control and excellent
service performance.
•The planning and flow of materials across the supply chain
are handled by a Transportation Management
Systems (TMS).

8. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
•TMS has Decision Support Capabilities:
•From a planning perspective
•Key planning support capabilities include:
•A-Routing and scheduling
•B-Mode and carrier selection
•C-Load planning
•TMS can automate a variety of activities to save time, avoid errors, and
reduce cost.
•From execution perspective
•Typical TMS execution functionality includes:
•A-Document creation
•B-Load tendering
•C-Appointment scheduling

9. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
•Importantly, a TMS provides valuable intelligence during and
after the delivery process.
•Necessary visibility and performance management functionality include:
•A-Track and trace
•B-Performance monitoring
•C-Freight bill auditing

10. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
•TMS Benefits An investment in a TMS can generate a variety of cost
and operational benefits.
1.Reduce expedited order costs.
2.Increase load consolidation.
3.Optimize carrier and mode selection.
4.Identify transportation invoice discrepancies.
5.Track carrier performance.
6.Lower administrative costs.
7.More accurate “available to promise”.
8.Contract savings: By improving demand estimates, firms can procure
materials in advance and save by negotiating long-term contracts.
9.Utilize assets more effectively.

11. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
SELECTION
AND IMPLEMENTATION
•There are different software in the market and the supply chain
professionals should analyze the different software to decide which fits the
company.
1.Needs Assessment:
•The needs assessment must address the links between effective business
processes, appropriate technology, and transportation performance.
•They should benchmark their delivery process capabilities against the
needs of their customers. If the current capabilities are deemed
inadequate, improvements must be made prior to technology evaluation.
1.Software Selection
A.Development Alternatives
B.Solutions Packages
C.Purchase Options

12. TRANSPORTATION SOFTWARE
SELECTION
AND IMPLEMENTATION
•Implementation Issues
•Transportation professionals tend to focus on functionality when
considering software, but they also must consider the implementation and
operational issue.
•Potentially useful software will become “shelf-ware” if it is difficult to
install, poorly linked to other tools, or too cumbersome to use, hence
upfront effort must be made to discuss implementation issues
A.Data Standardization: It’s given the variety of software vendors,
proprietary tools, and legacy systems, coordinating and sharing
information across the supply chain can be a significant challenge. Just as
different languages, dialects, and alphabets hamper human communication,
the variety of systems and programming languages used in transportation
software make it difficult to bring data together in an efficient, useful
manner
B.Application Integration: The greater the variety of applications, the
more challenging the connectivity and information-sharing issues become

13. TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT
TECHNOLOGY
The exciting and beneficial technological innovations in transportation
are not limited to software.
Ongoing development, testing, and investment in new equipment features
are being made to make transportation more sustainable, improve safety
in the transportation network, and reduce the potential for freight loss
and damage.
•1-Sustainability Initiatives
•2-Safety Efforts
•3-Cargo Security Innovations

14. 1-SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES
•The trucking industry has been on a quest to improve its fuel efficiency.
Fuel is the second highest cost of trucking operations and can be as
much as 20 percent of operating costs. Improvements in fuel economy
have a positive impact on company profits and reduce emissions.
Companies start using turbofans for the commercial aircrafts and
liquified natural gas (LNG).
2-SAFETY EFFORTS
•It is no surprise that significant efforts are being made to improve both
operator and equipment safety.
•Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), is used to electronically record a
driver’s Record of Duty Status, replacing the paper log book drivers
have traditionally used to record their compliance with hours of
service (HOS)requirements.

15. 3-CARGO SECURITY INNOVATIONS
•Internet of Things (IoT) sensors can be integrated into asset tracking
solutions for an additional layer of cargo security.
•The sensors can be used to detect when:
•• container locks and seals have been tampered with,
•• container doors have been opened,
•• cargo is present or absent inside the container,
•• temperature readings inside a container exceed acceptable ranges.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
•It is an exciting time in the transportation world with technological
innovation emerging at a rapid pace.
•Much of the investment will be in TMS implementation and upgrades,
but a growing portion will go toward disruptive technologies that will
usher in new delivery methods and better ways to use big data.
•For the emerging technologies there are three promising disruptors,
and are briefly discussed to conclude the chapter.

16. AUTONOMOUS TRANSPORTATION
•Transportation is a labor-intensive business, and operator roles like
driving a truck, piloting a ship, or operating a train can be a difficult job
with odd hours, time away from home, and stressful deadlines.
•That combination can lead to fatigue, poor decision making, and
accidents.
•Also, turnover can be high, particularly among the ranks of truck
drivers, efforts are under way to take many of the routine operator
tasks in trucks, ships, and trains, and turn them over to computers,
similar to what is done in the commercial airline industry with
autopilot capabilities.
•Big name companies are racing to revolutionize the trucking industry
with self-driving
•These autonomous vehicles are being developed and operated on test
tracks and remote highways, usually with a driver onboard to handle
complex tasks like parking or driving on city streets and to provide a
backup safety system should the system not work properly.

17. BLOCKCHAIN FOR FREIGHT & NEXT
GENERATION TMS
•Blockchain is a way to structure data, and digitally decentralized ledger
that keeps a record of all transactions that take place across a peer-to-
peer network.
•Where does blockchain intersect with transportation?
•Block chain generally leaves trails of paper work and this may assist
supply chain keep track and share info across the network making
information flow simple and accurate.
NEXT GENERATION TMS
•The next-generation TMS will analyze far more
variables than a human could handle, refresh its
records with real-time data, quickly calculate
the optimal shipping method, and even act on
its findings, according to industry experts.

18. The end
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