1. Advanced Transport Systems: General

The transport system can be considered as a physical entity for the mobility of persons and physical movements of freight/goods shipments between their (ultimate) origins and destinations. The entity consists of infrastructure, transport means/vehicles, supporting facilities and equipment, workforce, and organizational forms of their use. Energy/fuel is consumed to build/manufacture and operate the infrastructure, transport means/vehicles, and facilities and equipment. The transport system includes different forms/modes such as rail, road, water, air, and their sensible/wise combinations operating as intermodal or multimodal transport service networks. Depending on the volumes and intensity of passenger and freight/goods demand, each mode has different self-contained components distinguished mainly with respect to the type of technologies, resources used, and concepts of providing transport services. Consequently, in the remaining text, the term “systems” is used for these rather complex components of the transport system.