Transportation Technology

The Beginning - Life originated in water and evolved on land. 60% of water (humans) gathered materials available on the land to transport itself on water.

For the general knowledge dugouts are the oldest boats dating back to 900,000 years in Flores - Indonesia and 130,000 years in Crete - Greece. Humans used boats to travel from one place to another which was separated by a small stretch of water body. So boat was the first thing that humans created to transport themselves.

At around 3500 BCE domestication of horse race was accomplished. And some time later around 2200–1550 BCE wheel was put on a chariot for transportation. Horses coupled with wheels helped humans in transporting themselves and small quantities of the goods.

So far we have conquered two mediums for transportation namely water and earth (land). Mostly animal or human efforts were involved in transporting things and in instances when nature supported the transportation like wind to propel sail boats and gentle slope to help travel fast etc , it was considered a good omen. Now it was time for humans to fly and that feat was achieved with a lot of efforts in 1903 when humans managed to fly barely for a minute, precisely 59 seconds.

*Note - To move a thing from one place to another certain amount of energy is always required.

Advancement - After the invention of simple machines using wheels humans have invented more complex machines that made use of energy for transportation.

Now i am not going to write about engines, discoveries and inventions, i will just mention what were the advancement that took place in the field of transportation and mention them. They are as follow

Road transport - Bicycle, Bikes, rickshaws, cars, buses, trucks, trawlers.
Rail transport - Trains, fast trains.
Air transport - Airplanes, fast jets and Rockets.
Water transport - boats, ships and submarines.

There are segregated based upon - categories, types, varieties, energy source or fuel used, appearance, goods carried, passengers, functionality, purpose and usage but technically all of that boils down to the list mentioned above.

From human and animal efforts we have shifted to fossil fuels to generate energy and use it for transportation. Now we know that fossil fuels are limited and are not going to last even for a few decades, so we have started focusing on more reliable alternate energy sources that are in abundance like solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, hydro, hydrogen etc.

Energy translation that took place meanwhile was = Mechanical > Heat > Electric

Evolution in terms transportation

Horse -> wheel -> chariot pulled by horse -> Carts pulled by bullocks -> Bicycles -> Bikes -> Cars -> Buses->Trucks ->Trains -> boats -> Submarines -> Cargo Ships -> Planes -> Jets -> Rockets.

I have reiterated the modes of transportation in terms of evolution. The first three species namely Horses, Chariots, Bullock Carts are on the verge of extinction even in the remote areas in terms of transportation's evolution. Bicycles, Bikes and rickshaws are endangered in developed economies. I have not mentioned money so far to clearly paint a picture of where we are , but now its time to.

The global logistics market is set to expand to US$ 15.5 tn by the end of 2024 as stated in the report of - Transparency market research. To understand what that means, let us relate it to the amount of money we have in the world.

The total money in the world till present is US$ 1.2 quadrillion which is roughly 1200 tn - source democracy.info and according to credit Suisse it is estimated at US$ 256 tn. Which source is more accurate nobody can guess for known reasons with fiat currencies and complex shadow economies.

Well still US$ 15.5 tn is not a bad number considering the total amount of money on this planet to US$ 1200 tn on the higher side.

Even If the fossil fuel get exhausted there is no need to worry. Electric Magnetic Nuclear and Chemical takeover of Heat energy is taking place.

One can clearly identify a demand and Supply gap in near future as fossil is expected to be burned into dark thick air. Adjective to the word air has become a kind of a hobby for me nowadays.

Battery = Storage of electricity = Chemical Energy
Battery = Solar , Lithium, Hydrogen fuel cell

Car - Going electric - (Heat[Nuclear, Solar]- Kinetic[Wind, Hydro, Tidal] - Electric -Chemical[Batteries] - Electric)
Ships - Going Nuclear, Electric - (Heat[Nuclear, Solar] -Kinetic) or (Heat[Nuclear, Solar]- Kinetic - Electric)
Airplanes - Going Solar, Electric -(Electric [Solar] - Chemical - Electric)

Understanding of energy has become a thing of paramount importance because from hereon the development in the field of transportation is going to take a giant leap.

Hyperloop, Maglev, Electric Cars, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Trucks, Nuclear Powered Ships, Solar Planes, Battery Operated Vehicles (BOVs or Pods)

Hyperloop - incorporates reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on air bearings driven by linear induction motors and air compressors - source Wikipedia. Due to traffic congestion, a private company by the name boring company has come up to implement this technology. Its max speed will be 760 miles/ hour and average would be around 600 miles/hour.

Maglev - Magnetic levitation is a method by which an object is suspended with no support other than magnetic fields. Magnetic force is used to counteract the effects of the gravitational acceleration and any other accelerations.
Maglev speed is 603 km/h (375 mph), achieved in Japan by JR Central's L0 superconducting Maglev, other companies that implement this technology are American Maglev Technology from USA, Swissrapide AG from Switzerland etc.

Electric Cars - Almost all major car companies are filling the market with newer and efficient electric cars. These are BMW, General Motors, Tesla, Honda, Toyota, Fiat and KIA. The only technology that they work upon is improving the battery and that takes care of pretty much everything else.

Fuel Cell Trucks - Toyota, General motors and Nikola are the companies that are working on the Hydrogen fuel cell technology. Hydrogen is more affordable and more efficient than gasoline or diesel, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are also capable of greater range than electric vehicles. So its basically a cell or sell game.

Nuclear Powered or Hydrogen Powered Ships - So far we use Nuclear energy to propel aircraft carriers aka warships and submarines but due shortage in fossil fuels we will see either Hydrogen or Nuclear energy powered cargoes in near future.

Solar Planes - Most people are already aware of Solar Impulse 2 completing a voyage round the world. So nothing new just solar cells or Hydrogen cells.

Battery Operated Pods - Improved Battery even Lithium Batteries will do the job only efficiency needs to be improved.

So these technologies are under development and their full potential is yet to be realized. To simplify and state the technologies on which the future of transportation is dependent i have just mentioned the technologies in csv format as below one can export them and use however they can without any permission from the author -

Hyperloop, Magnetic Levitation, Efficient and long lasting Batteries, Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Improved Solar Cells. Any body who has contributed to its development can proclaim to have hit a jackpot.

Transportation is a general term that is used throughout the article - It includes personal travel, logistics and all forms of travelling apart from walking and running.

The above mentioned technologies are not only difficult to develop but also difficult to implement on the existing infrastructure. So only those companies will be able to master these technologies that have with them massive amount of money to invest in its development. There are other things like self driving cars and rockets that i have purposely left in this article. The core focus was on transportation and not the additional features. Since rocketry is entirely different and in my opinion will take some time to generate volume to affect an average human travel experience so skipped that part as well. We are heading towards a universal fuel that is Hydrogen. Read the news below.

The Hydrogen Council, which features the likes of Honda, Hyundai, and Royal Dutch Shell, among others, is readying itself to sell the idea of hydrogen as a key participant in the climate change battle. The ambition is backed by a commitment to invest in the development and commercialization of hydrogen and fuels cells.

To summarize this we are heading toward transporting ourselves from one place to another at a greater speeds and that's equivalent to One Republic's Future Looks Good.

Below here i am sharing few of the images that i have come across while collecting information about this article.

This image is of the route map traversed by Solar Impulse 2 taken from the guardian

Fuel Cell Truck Startup Nikola

Pod which operates under Masdar City - Abu Dhabi

"Royal Caribbean made headlines in October when it announced it will use hydrogen fuel cell technology."

BMW I8 from the BMW series of electric cars

Solar impulse the solar plane that traveled round the globe

Maglev train

125 Miles/hr Hyperloop test

Alternative solution to traffic problem and not so boring.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell

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