Starting with the invention of the wheel and the use of carts for transportation, humans have overcome the constraints of space and time by developing roads, railroads, and air transportation. This has not only facilitated the movement of people and goods, but also increased cultural and economic exchange and fueled the Industrial Revolution. But along with its positive impacts, transportation development has also created problems such as environmental pollution and resource depletion. Today, transportation is increasingly seen as a field that needs to address global challenges while making human life easier.
The English word “transport” is a combination of the words “trans” (across, over) and “porte” (to carry), meaning “to carry across”. In German, it’s called “Verkehr,” which means “to do one thing in one place and do it in another. In Korean, we define transportation as “the movement of people or goods by car, train, ship, or airplane.” The nuances of the word “transportation” are due to the fact that it’s a very abstract and broad concept. In this article, we’re going to explore the meaning of “transportation” or “transportation” through its origins and development, as it is closely related to our daily lives but difficult to simply define.
We know that transportation has evolved throughout human history, as evidenced by the fact that round wheels were used as early as 5,000 BC and horses began to be used as transportation tools around 2,000 BC. The first chariots appeared in Mesopotamia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia around 3,500 B.C. At that time, wheels were made of a single log or two or three wooden plates connected together, making them very heavy and inconvenient to use. However, around 2,000 B.C., the development of hollowing out the center of the wheel by nailing it to a wooden rim hollowed out the wheel, making it lighter and allowing horses or donkeys to move quickly, greatly expanding the range of people’s activities.
In addition to transporting the necessities of life, the need for transportation also emerged as a means of commemorating rulers and preventing enemy invasions. Huge structures such as the pyramids of Egypt in the 27th century BC, the Great Wall of China in the 2nd century BC, and Roman roads and aqueducts required stone and wood to be transported from far away because it was impossible to source materials locally. These examples show that the development of civilization is closely linked to the development of transportation.
The development of transportation is closely linked to the development of transportation and roads. The Roman Empire’s road network was an example of an innovative transportation system for its time: the vast network of roads leading from Rome to the rest of Europe was about 90,000 kilometers long, or about 300,000 kilometers if you include the lower roads. Some of them are still in use today, which shows the technical superiority of the roads of the time. In the 19th century, the Englishmen T. Telford and J.L. McCatham developed new road construction methods that made it easier to build roads suitable for horse-drawn traffic, especially McCatham’s crushed stone method, which spread throughout Europe and the United States.
The Industrial Revolution brought about major changes in transportation. The three main phases of transportation development during the Industrial Revolution were road improvements, canal construction, and railroad construction. Road improvements began in the mid-18th century, with the introduction of new pavements and toll road systems. Canals were built for ship traffic and required a lot of capital and engineers. Railroads were first used inside coal mines and then became a major mode of transportation, connecting mines and industrial areas. With the development of steam-powered locomotives, railroads gradually replaced horse-drawn carriages and canals as the dominant mode of transportation, allowing for the unification of Korea’s markets and the integration of regional economies into the national economy.
During the Industrial Revolution, transportation advancements led to major changes in the social and economic structure by speeding up the supply of raw materials and increasing productivity. It made the distance between production and consumption unbounded, weakening the landownership and social position of the aristocracy. The impact of these transportation advances on society as a whole was enormous.
Later, the advent of air transportation expanded the spatial scope of transportation from the planar to the spatial. After the Wright brothers made the world’s first powered flight of 36 meters in 1903, airplane performance improved rapidly through World War I. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made a landless crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, and by 1927, airplanes had improved so much that it was now possible to fly from New York to Paris in seven hours. This made the concept of the “global village” a reality, and thanks to airplanes, cultures, goods, and information from different countries are rapidly exchanged.
The development of transportation has been driven by humans’ efforts to overcome the constraints of time and space, and as a result, new cultures have been created and influenced by each other. The recent rise of Korea’s singer Sai in the U.S. is also due to the development of transportation. Sai’s rise to prominence in the U.S. shows that transportation plays a big role in not only cultural creation but also cultural exchange.
However, the development of modern transportation also brings negative impacts such as pollution, noise, environmental pollution, greenhouse effect, and depletion of energy resources. In particular, the energy consumption of transportation is increasing globally, requiring energy conservation in public transportation and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from internal combustion engines. With these efforts, modern transportation can continue to raise human living standards and play an important role in the exchange of culture, technology, goods, and information between different countries and regions.
