The role and function of transport

Exercise 5. Circle the true statements and correct the false ones according to the film.

a. The film starts in New York City.

b. The flight number is 908.

c. Neil could not travel 1^st class.

d. They couldn’t land in Chicago because of the weather.

e. They landed in Texas.

f. The receptionist at the motel was Gus.

g. Phil, Gus’s son, took them to the train station.

h. The last words in the film are “So long Mrs Page”.

Exercise 6.Read and translate the Basic text (BT).

1. Economics is concerned with the production of goods and services which satisfy people’s wants. In the modern world there were until recently three chief types of economy. These (1) were the free enterprise economies, such as the economy of the United States; the centralised economies, such as the economies of the Soviet bloc countries; and mixed economies, of which the economies of the European Union were perhaps the best example. Since the breakdown of the Communist system in the Soviet bloc the strongly centralised economies have lost their “central” powerbase and are seeking to replace it (2) by a rather haphazard privatisation programme to restore free enterprise. Whatever solutions are found to the problems in providing goods and services to satisfy wants, they (3) are bound to be alike in one aspect: transport is essential element in each system.

2. The production process is based on transport, for a good or service has not been fully produced until it (4) is available in finished form to the consumer. A “good” cannot even start to be produced until the raw materials, components, etc. reach the factory production line. The good must reach the consumer, or the consumer must reach the place where the service (medical care, education, entertainment or recreation) is available.

3. The chief function of transport is to bridge producer-consumer gaps. Economists recognise two such gaps, the time gap and the geographical gap. The first one (5) arises because goods produced today may not be required until tomorrow, or any other time in the future. This gap is bridged by warehousing process, with its (6) techniques for preserving goods against deterioration. As far as transport is concerned, it involves the use of refrigerated vehicles and vessels, and a proper attention to security to prevent various types of theft. The geographical gap arises because producers and consumers are rarely in the same place. Transport bridges this gap so that goods and services may be exchanged to the mutual benefit of producers and customers.

4. Transport is often regarded as a catalyst to economic activity. It speeds up the ecomony by bringing in raw materials and components easily and cheaply and clearing the production lines by removing finished products to warehouses, depots and marketing outlets. It (7) also makes movements of consumers of goods and services easy, bringing them to the points where they can experience the pleasures of a consumer society.

5. We need transport to attain levels of domestic satisfaction not possible in former times. We live in suburbs and commute to work in busy cities. We visit our parents, choose schools for our children at a distance from our homes, travel to colleges for education, arrange appointments with consultants at specialist hospitals, fly around the world, visit theatres, exhibitions, and generally enrich our lives by travel.

6. Transport facilities are regarded as a response of transport engineers and entrepreneurs to the needs of society at that particular time, in view of the technology currently available. Stand on any overpass above a motorway and consider the traffic passing below. Beside a wide variety of cars and light vans, each with its own specialist features, the enormous range of heavy vehicles is a tribute to their designers’ skill. Specialised tankers for fuel oils, chemicals and powders are a main feature of our modern traffic. Compared with the traffic of the past, there has been a great leap forward and engineers are still working to find new better solutions.

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