Question

Answer the following question in not more than 150 words.

Explain in detail the significance of transport and communication services.

Answer 1

Transport is a service or facility by which persons, manufactured goods, and property are physically carried from one location to another. It is an organised industry created to satisfy man’s basic need for mobility. Modern society requires speedy and efficient transport systems to assist in the production, distribution and consumption of goods. At every stage in this complex system, the value of the material is significantly enhanced by transportation. Transport activities are essential to carry out trade services. Transportation is also essential for defence purposes. It links different parts of the country with each other and with other countries as well, which increases national and global linkage. It also links rural and urban areas and helps usher in development even in rural and backward areas. It makes more places suitable for setting up industries, thereby increasing job opportunities.

Communication services involve the transmission of words, messages, facts, and ideas. Human beings have used various methods of long-distance communication, among which the telegraph and the telephone were important. Even today, the telephone is the most commonly used mode. In developing countries, satellite-enabled cell phones are important for rural connectivity. These allow large quantities of data to be transmitted rapidly and securely, with virtually no errors. With the digitisation of information in the 1990s, telecommunications slowly merged with computing to form integrated networks known as the Internet.

Satellite communication emerged as a new area of communication technology. These have rendered the unit cost and communication time invariant with respect to distance. Cyberspace exists everywhere. It may be in an office, a sailing boat, a plane, or virtually anywhere. As billions use the Internet each year, cyberspace will expand the contemporary economic and social space of humans through e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance. The Internet, together with fax, television and radio, will be accessible to more and more people, cutting across place and time. It is these modern communication systems, along with transportation, that have made the concept of the global village a reality.