Road Transport History Early Transport Roman Roads

Road transport or road transportation is transport on roads, i.e. most transport over land which is not rail transport in the wide sense.

1 History

1.1 Early Transport

The first forms of road transport were horses or oxen carrying goods over dirt tracks that often followed game trails. As commerce increased, the tracks were often flattened or widened to accommodate the activities.

1.2 Roman Roads

With the advent of the Roman Empire, there was a need for armies to be able to travel quickly for one area to another, and the roads that existed were often muddy, which greatly delayed the movement of large masses of troops. To resolve this issue, the Romans built great roads. The Roman roads used deep roadbeds of crushed stone as a underlying layer to ensure that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from the crushed stone, instead of becoming mud in clay soils. The legions made good time on these roads and some are still used millennia later.

On the more heavily traveled routes, there were additional layers that included six sided capstones, or pavers, that reduced the dust and reduced the drag from wheels. The pavers allowed the Roman chariots to travel very quickly, ensuring good communication with the Roman provinces. Farm roads were often paved first on the way into town, to keep produce clean. Early forms of springs and shocks to reduce the bumps were incorporated in horse drawn transport, as the original pavers were sometimes not perfectly aligned.

1.3 Industrial Revolution

With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, steam powered engines were developed, but most were too heavy for common roads, and were implemented on railroads, where the weight could be isolated to supporting rails, which also reduced the frictionIn physics, friction is the resistive force that occurs when two surfaces travel along each other when forced together. It causes physical deformation and heat buildup. The frictional force is a function of the force pressing the surfaces together and the or drag. Of notable interest is that common British rail gauge is the same width as the Roman chariot wheelbase, as that was the common width for carts ever since.

1.4 Tarmac

At the time of the Industrial Revolution, and because of the increased commerce that came with it, improved roadways became imperative. The problem was rain combined with dirt roads created commerce miring mud. A Scotsman named McAdam designed the first modern highways. He developed an inexpensive paving material of soil and stone aggregate (aptly known as macadam), and he embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to cause water to drain away from the surface (and hence the birth of the term highway.) When his substance was tarred to reduce erosion, it became known as tarmacadam, or tarmacTarmac short for tar-penetration macadam, is a type of highway pavement no longer commonly used. Macadamized roads were adequate for use by horses and carriages or coaches, but they were very dusty and did not hold up to higher speed motor vehicle use..

1.5 Pneumatic Tires

As the horse-drawn carriage was replaced by the automobileAn automobile usually called a car (an old word for carriage) or a truck is a wheeled vehicle that carries its own engine. Older terms include horseless carriage and motor car with "motor" referring to what is now usually called the engine. The act of ope and lorryA lorry is an expression for # a truck # an open railroad car with a tipping trough, often found in mines # The word originally meant a sort of heavy horsedrawn wagon. This is an obsolete usage. The word may have originated as the personal name "Laurie", or truckFor further uses of the word truck see Truck (disambiguation). A truck is a motor vehicle for transporting goods. Unlike automobiles, which usually have a unibody construction, most trucks (with the exception of the car-like minivan) are built around a st, and speeds increased, the need for smoother roads and less vertical displacement became more apparent, and pneumatic tiresA tire ( US spelling) or tyre ( UK spelling) is a roughly toroidal piece of (usually) rubber placed on a wheel to cushion it. Tires generally have reinforcing threads in them; based on the orientation of the threads, they are classified as bias-ply/ cross were developed to decrease the apparent roughness.

1.6 Toll Roads

With the development, mass production, and popular embrace of the automobile, faster and higher capacity roads were needed. In the 1920sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Events and trends Technology John Logie Baird invents the first working t limited access highways appeared. Their main characteristics were dual roadways with access points limited to (but not always) grade-separated interchanges. Their dual roadways allowed high volumes of traffic, the need for no or few traffic lights along with relatively gentle grades and curves allowed higher speeds. Bicyclists campaigned for good roads early on.

The first limited access highways were Parkways, so called because of their often park-like landscaping and, in the Metropolitan NYC area, they connected the region's system of parks. In the 1930s came the German Autobahns, which brought higher design standards and speeds. In this decade, the US started building toll roads to similar high standards.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, after World War II interrupted the evolution of the highway, the US resumed building toll roads. They were to still higher standards and one road, the NY State Thruway, had standards that became the prototype for the US Interstate System. The American Interstate Road System uses 12 foot (3.65m) lanes, wide medians, a maximum of 4% grade, and full access control. This system was started in the mid- 1950s, and created a continental-sized network meant to connect every population center of 50,000 people or more.

1.7 Road Trains

The least populated and most remote states of Australia have huge truck trailer combinations called road trains.

2 See also

Transportation *

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