Efficiency of goods transportation : mapping of underlying factors of the execution of transports

The society of today can’t manage without transportation. We need transports to getfood, to go to work and to create new products. The transportation ofgood is thus an important part in the function of the society and they’ll increase, bothin number and in amount. The efficiency of the transportation system isessential for us to be able to continue living as we are used to. The aim of this thesis has been to create a simplified representation of the variousways to efficient freight transportation. The problems have been to find outwhich factors that determine the conditions for an effective transport, which of thefactors that influence the effectiveness the most and if the carriers and theliterature have a similar picture of which these factors are. Four measures of transport efficiency have been used in the thesis; loading ratio, CO2 emissions, damage to the cargo and delivery precision. To obtain this, a study of literature and interviews with six carriers was carriedthrough. Different measures of transport efficiency and the factors that mayaffect them were discussed. A conceptual model was developed to provide anunderstanding of how the transportation of goods, traders and transportefficiency are interrelated. The various carriers agreed that the selected measures are relevant measures oftransportation efficiency. They agreed on some factors that may affect theperformance indicators and disagreed on some. The differing in their opinions coulddepend on the different types of goods they shipping and within differentregions