From travelling by foot, to high-speed air travel, the speed and lengths of human transportation is an ever-changing branch of technology. Travelling by foot, it took our ancestors thousands of years to cross the land bridges into North America, a trip that occurs thousands of times daily today. Just over one hundred years ago, nearly none of the transportation methods as we know them today existed. The perfection of the steam engine in 1775 by Watt led to the movement of humans to form larger cities, as transportation by train made continental travel possible. It was not until 1908 that the first mass- produced car was manufactured by Henry Ford in Detroit, Michigan, opening up continental travel to everyone. Arguably the greatest innovation in transportation technology first took flight in 1903, and is our gateway to global travel today: the airplane. But, transportation technology is not all about human travel, it also includes the transportation of goods. This branch of transportation allows our society to trade or purchase goods from anywhere around the globe by all the great innovations described and most importantly, shipping by freight. Transportation technology has the largest impact on today’s society, it allows humans to perform both global, and independent travel, as well as the transportation of goods across the globe and ultimately is the backbone of society today.
The steam engine started one of the most prolific time periods in history; the Industrial Revolution. This revolution began in the 1830s and the effects it had are still apparent today. The steam engine was the first innovation that replaced muscle power with machine power. It allowed for mass production, creating factories of machines in the bigger cities of the time. At the same time it was being used to mass-produce in factories, the steam engine was being used to power locomotives in a more efficient way. This affected society in a positive way as, “With the steam locomotive, people were able to move to cities, find more jobs, and travel faster” (The Steam Locomotive). The steam locomotive was the first time in history continental travel was possible allowing for people to settle in the larger cities where the job opportunities were causing the population of large cities to increase extremely fast. Prior to this innovation, there was no need to move to the larger cities, but after it changed the technology in manufacturing, locomotives and continental travel were a necessity. With this great innovation came one negative effect: pollution. The carbon dioxide gas emitted from the locomotives and engines created polluted air which led to poor air quality and living conditions in the surrounding areas. This leap in transportation technology sparked the industrial revolution and pushed society forward in a positive direction for more innovations to come.
The next of the innovations having a large impact on the transportation world was the automobile, being first mass produced in Detroit, Michigan beginning in 1908. With Henry Ford’s assembly line, he had sold over one million cars by 1920 bringing even more people to big cities. For example, Detroit grew from a quarter of a million people to right around one million in just under a decade. The early concept of the automobile being a luxury item became the opposite as the assembly line lowered the cost by such a great margin, that it was now affordable to almost everyone. This had such a great impact on the economy for the reason that, “it gave travelers the freedom to travel when they wanted to and where they wanted” (The History of the Automobile). It allowed for point to point travel for the individual human being whenever and wherever they wanted to go. Not only did it create autonomy for society, it created jobs and allowed for more people, including the middle class to access transportation in an affordable manner. The wish of this individual travel method, along with the mass production of the automobile, helped forge the network of highways and roads driven on today, allowing for over 1 billion cars to be driven globally. “100 years later and North America had built the world’s largest road network, 4.5 million miles worth,” (Humanity from Space) this being just one example of the impact the automobile has had globally. The economy was again uplifted with more job opportunities in building these roads based on the effect transportation technology had on the world. Another important development created by the automobile was suburbia. This concept allowed for people to commute to work in larger cities without having to live in the heart of the city, giving them some sort of the effect of country life. The invention of the automobile and all the great impacts it had on the current culture is what binds the human race together, and was the first point in history where humanity was considered a modern civilization.
The greatest innovation in the transportation technology world first lifted off five years before the mass production of automobile in a small town in North Carolina where the Wright brothers got their first model “the flyer” to lift-off for twelve seconds. They continued to develop slowly until World War I broke out and the need for aviation increased. The first real impact aviation had on the world was the introduction of the air mail service in the early 1920s, which led to the addition of several European countries to the routes. As designing and testing advanced into the 1930s, the transportation of passengers became profitable, and in 1937 the first transoceanic flight for passengers flew from San Francisco to Hong Kong. Aviation and flight has become the leader in global and continental transportation for humans in today’s society as they are the most time efficient means of travel. The magnitude of the aviation industry can be felt, “when you realize that aviation, if it were a country, would be the 19th largest economy in the world” (ATAG). Aviation has connected people in a way never imaginable, while the industry has created 56.6 million jobs worldwide with a global GDP of $2.2 trillion dollars. At any given time during the day 500,000 humans are in flight, while yearly, three billion people travel to their desired destination by means of air travel. The innovation of powered flight technology has created the global network as we know it to connecting people across the global through aviation daily. Aviation is considered the single most impactful innovation in the human transportation technology world, bringing people across the globe daily, and virtually shrinking the world in size.
Aside from human transportation, this technology is utilized to move goods all over the world. The transportation of goods took off in 1920 as the innovation of aviation opened the opportunity to transport packages by flight. Before this major leap, goods including perishable foods, and other merchandise was limited to trade in smaller locations, or within cities rather than the global standard of today’s society. This global standard of trading goods has allowed cities worldwide to acquire food, resources, and other materials from countries across the globe at a cost effective and high quality rate. Modern day shipping has opened up the people of the world to the ability to buy goods from any country worldwide. It has created a network across the globe of trading between countries lowering the cost of these exotic goods to those in search. The transportation of goods by shipping crate is a $4 trillion-dollar industry, shipping over 120 million crates per year by freight. Without these shipping methods, the diversity of products available would be unimaginable and the modern way of life would not be possible. “The ability to buy goods from around the world…the shrinking of its marketplaces has brought a degree of interconnectedness, that makes the world everyone’s country,” (Humanity from Space) this idea of the world being everyone’s country, illustrates how the ability to ship worldwide has brought modern day society closer than ever predicted. By opening up this network of shipping, transportation technology has strengthened the connection between countries across the globe and the goods they have to offer.
Transportation technology is and will continue to be the backbone of society through the innovations of independent travel and global connection for everyone, to the transportation of goods worldwide. Beginning in the industrial revolution, transportation technology made its first mark with the development of the steam engine locomotive, allowing for the initial continental travel. Next, the mass production of the automobile led by Henry Ford in 1908, fulfilled the wish of independent travel for all humans at an affordable price. It was not until the development and innovation of the airplane by the Wright brothers, that global travel became possible connecting people around the world daily, a task before seen as impossible. Finally, through these same innovations as well as by freight, the transportation of goods worldwide has become a routine task performed daily due to advancements in transportation technology. The transportation technology industry will continue to innovate means of travelling faster, and more efficiently, to bring the human race closer together than ever before.
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