TLMT600Wk7

References "Domestic Water Carriers." Http://www.slideserve.com/Olivia/domestic-water-carriers. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2015.

Hazen, K., & Lynch, C., The Role Transportation in Supply Chain, CFL Publishing, 2008.

Rodrigue, Dr. Jean-Paul. "Transport and Sustainability." Transport and Sustainability. N.p., 2017. Web. 05 June 2017.

Sustainability of Transportation As we approach week 7 we are going to be discussing the sustainability of transportation. First we need to know what exactly we are talking about when we say sustainability. The concept itself is not as easy as one thinks, as it has many different interpretations and connections with other transportation modes. Even though there can be much confusion, it is for the most part agreed that a sustainable society is one in which there are benefits to the economy, environment, and society that does not comprise the future generations. But as we have all seen even the 'things' that are not supposed to harm the current conditions sometimes do and it is dependent upon what is happening currently, we all know we are not able to change all those things even when we know it is the best thing to do. When looking further into what sustainability is, we can break it down into the the three Es: which are social equity, economic efficiency and environmental responsibility. We will now discuss each of these Es more to ensure we understand how each affect the sustainability of transportation. Social equity is the conditions of the distribution of resources within our current generation that are used to compare levels of production (Rodrigue, 2017). Looking further into this is looks at the individuals who are freely pursuing their choices and reaping the rewards. It is usually the more difficult concept of sustainability to understand and define due to the differing segments of populations and how they tend to agree or disagree.

Now on to the economic efficiency look within the sustainability we focus on the conditions that allow us to have higher levels of efficiencies within the resources and labor usage (Rodrique, 2017). It hones in on the capabilities, competitiveness, flexibility within the production and providing or the goods and services within the marketplace. The production needs to be distributed out to all who are able to made as well as opened to all marketplaces who would like to sell. Lastly, we will look at the environmental responsibility which looks at the footprint of what is needed to produce and distribute those goods and what it will do to the environment. It looks at the resources such as the energy, food, and water as well as the safe disposal of the waste from the production and distribution of the products. The core of this is to focus on the conservation and reusability of the products and resources (Rodrique, 2017).

Another area that we need to consider is the regulation of this sustainability. We have to consider and look at the point of view of the environmentalists who take heed to the regulations and policies so they tend to say that sustainability is a to difficult to understand in the way it is written and addressed now. They want the term to be shortened and more easily understood by all so that their is no misinterpretation of what it actually does to the environment. The question that lingers is if the expectations can be placed on seeking a positive perception or on seeking to optimize efficiency than will the environmentalists and the transportation entities be able to come to an agreement. This is still a factor that we need to work on as we know that the government is not the most flexible nor are most environmentalist groups, both have high stakes on each side, so this is something we need to continue to work on an agreement to. We know that the regulations are there on both sides to protect the terms that are vital to the environment but allow for the ability to move our goods down the road.

Now shifting gears from sustainability to domestic water carriers and how they are moving our transportation abilities further down the road. According to a power point

presentation title "Domestic Water Carriers” (n. d.) state the when looking at domestic water carriers we will start with a brief history of how they began.

•Transport roughly 14% of total national freight

•26.5% of total domestic ton-miles

•Employ close to 200,000

•Average compensation = 47,000 ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

There are mainly two types of carriers, one is private carriers that cannot be hired out for profit. They can only transport freight of company that owns/lease the vessel. The other type of carrier is the for-hire carriers who are able to charge fee for their services. As well they are exempt from economic regulation when transporting dry & liquid bulk commodities. A vast majority of freight transported meets this type of carrier. So then, most of the for-hire carriers are exempt for economic regulation which has its own issues. Within these for hire carriers, there are the regulated for-hire carriers who are economically regulate by the STB, which comprise about 300 carriers and are classified as either common or contract carriers. Another type of carrier is the internal carriers who operate on U.S. Rivers & lakes (primarily the Great Lakes) ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

The principal waterways and rivers are:

■ Mississippi

■ Ohio

■ Tennessee

■ Columbia

■ Hudson

■ Tenn-Tom Waterway ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

The next type of carrier is the costal carriers who operate along coasts (Atlantic, Pacific, & Gulf of Mexico), they use oceangoing vessels primarily, although some oceangoing barges used (18,000 ton capacity) ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

Some to the general services that are provided whether by for-hire or not-for-hire carriers are:

◦ Dry bulk (coal & coke) = 28.3%

◦ Petroleum (& related) = 24.4%

◦ Food & farm = 14.4%

◦ Chemicals = 8.4%

◦ Iron ore, iron & steel = 4.7%

◦ All other = 19.8% ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

Lastly, as with all transportation carrier’s service disruptions can happen which usually occur in the form of the following:

◦ Ice

◦ Hurricanes ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d.).

The types of domestic carriers used are tanker which are the largest ship in domestic water industry. Then there is the barge which is most commonly used vessel by internal waterway carriers ("Domestic Water Carriers", n. d., n. p.).

Video - "Sustainable Transport Systems"