Transport is a key to modern life and something that we take largely for granted. But it takes a lot of effort to keep the world’s wheels turning.

Ships and ports
The choice of goods in our supermarkets these days is extraordinary – from exotic fruit to cheap tee-shirts. Many of these products come from abroad – sometimes thousands of miles away. But how did they get here? Most goods are transported by sea, within large steel containers, which are usually either 20 or 40 feet long. These containers are stacked on cargo ships. The largest of these ships can be vast – more than 300 metres long and capable of carrying thousands of containers, weighing around a hundred thousand tonnes.

Once the ship has docked the containers are unloaded by massive cranes and transferred to trucks which take the container to a storage area of the port terminal where they are unloaded by large 16-wheeled ‘gantry cranes’ which straddle the vehicles and remove the container. The gantry cranes then re-load the containers on to lorries to be taken to their final destination. Each year more than 200 million containers are shipped worldwide.

Traffic management
Meanwhile, modern technology is helping to keep traffic flowing on our roads and to warn drivers of problems ahead. CCTV cameras and traffic sensors are placed at selected places on the road network, continuously monitoring the volume and speed of traffic passing a particular point.

The information is transmitted to a central control room, where the overall state of traffic flow on the network can be continually assessed. Where there are traffic jams ahead, signals can be sent to overhead electronic display boards, warning motorists of potential delays. In addition, the information can be used to update websites that motorists can access before they set off on their journey.

Tyres
Road transport would be almost impossible without the humble car tyre. This simple-looking structure is in fact a marvel of engineering which we usually take for granted – until we get a puncture.

Tyres are made from natural and synthetic rubber, reinforced with textile fabric and steel cord. The tyre consists of reinforced rubber sheets, ‘bead rings’ made from steel wires that form the rim of the tyre, steel belts and the tread rubber. All these are manufactured separately before being assembled in a ‘building drum’, before finally being placed inside a mould in a curing press, where the tyre is heated under pressure. Eventually it is cooled and any excess rubber trimmed away. More than a billion car tyres are manufactured in this way each year across the world.