Routes And Sectional Capacity:
Another important aspect of transport planning is the routes for streams of traffic, viz., roadways, railways, waterways and airways. The routes or pathways must have adequate capacities. Generally speaking, because of lack of understanding of the transportation subject, executives take it for granted that capacity of routes is unlimited.
A very important but invisible component of movement activity is sectional capacity, which is dependant on permissible sectional speed and other characteristics of a section. In turn, sectional speed depends on the geometrics of the road (track, sea route, road surface, carriage way, gradients and curves, etc.).
Over a section of railways or roadways between two stations A and B, only a limited number of wagons, trucks or vehicles can be pushed through, depending on the availability of terminal facilities to handle these vehicles, the facilities to enable vehicles to move on the section, and availability of sufficient number of vehicles. Unless sufficient capacity is developed on each of the different routes to move the vehicles, the additional number of vehicles provided would not necessarily lead to higher levels of transport availability. On the contrary, movement may become more sluggish.
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