BPMG3013 TRANSPORT PLANNING & POLICY

ACADEMIC SESSION 2017/2018 (A172)

Route Transportation Planning for Optimizing Risks in Industrial

Supply Chain:

Risk Elements in Transportation

Prepared to:
Dr. Kamal Imran bin Mohd Sharif

Prepared by:

NAME MATRIC NUMBER

JEEVAN A/L G MIMHAPAN 240703
DELIPKUMAR A/L S THINAKARAN 237513

NURAZLIN SULAIMAN 243187

CHEOK XING WEI 238461

LING MEI HUA 240205

ASILAH NAJAT BINTI SABAR 242990

VINNIE LIM KIM NE 239503

NG YEE CHYN 240698

LOW MEI SIONG 239679

SUBMISSION DATE:
16 APRIL 2018
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Risk Elements in Transportation

1. Inability to keep up with pace of change and technology advancement

Nowadays, it is the digital era whereby technology involved significantly in our daily activities.
In the transportation aspect, technology has become one of the main consideration while doing policy
planning and analysis. Whereby the related parties need to identify the available technology, how much
it cost for the use of technology and the effect of technology towards the transportation sector. One of
the factor that contributed to the risk elements in transportation is the incapability to cope with change
and technological advancement. Geographic information systems (GIS) is an important tool for
transportation planning and operation whereby it is mainly use for road design, engineering drafting
and design, geographic mapping analysis, routing and dispatching vehicles, accidents and traffic
volume analysis (Antenucci, 1991). For example, if the Department of Transportation unable to cope
with the latest technology while doing road mapping and traffic management, there is a high possibility
of mistake to be occurs. Once there is impropriate road design whether it's in facilities, transport
connectivity, pavement maintenance and so on, it will bring risk to the road users (Simkowitz, 1989).
Another example is the use of GPS, most of the road users nowadays use mobile application which
consists the GPS system to check the road traffic before they depart. Through the application, the road
user gets to know which route is currently facing traffic jammed and they can select an alternative route
to get to their destination, this can improve the overall safety and reduce the travel time for the journey.
A driver who do not use road traffic application will face higher possibility of risks as compared to a
driver who use road traffic application. This is because the driver who do not use road traffic application
have higher chance to get impatient once they are stuck in the traffic jammed or get lost in certain area,
and impatient will causes misjudgment throughout the driving journey which will lead to accident
(Mintsis, 2004).

2. Risk from deterioration of natural

Nowadays, transportation is one of the necessary component of modern life and connect the
communities from different places. According to The Star Online (2014), Malaysia are places on third
globally in South East Asia markets for car-ownership and the percentage is 93%. Not surprisingly,
54% of household in our country having more than one car and again Malaysia became the highest
incidence of multiple car ownership in the global. Since there is a lot of private car in our country that
is mean the exposure to the air pollution also high and especially in urban areas. Moreover,
transportation became half of the contribution for the air pollution.

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 Furthermore, the main cause of air pollution is the road transport and became a major cause of
adverse health effects. In towns, cities or urban areas, where there is busiest and having more car or
transportation are the places that having highest levels of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, benzene,
and hydrocarbons (Earth, 1997). However, the pollution is depending by the cars varies operating mode
and the pollution will be produce more when traffic jams which is the idling petrol engines is more
often (Gatersleben & Uzzell, 2000). In general, the air pollution that contains all of chemical such as
ozone and nitrogen dioxide can make the susceptibility to infection is increasing. Others than that,
nitrogen dioxide can cause grave asthma symptoms, carbon monoxide causes reduced the oxygen-
carrying capacity of the blood and benzene can cause leukemia (Earth, 1997).

Besides, risks from deterioration of the natural environment in transportation can cause a direct
impact from noise pollution. It shows that the main source of noise pollution is from road traffic. In
urban areas, noise factors also due to traffic congestion and to traffic lights like idling engine (World
Health Organization, 2006). Hence, for road transportation in urban areas produces a frequency of noise
which is a mixture of all sound generated by vehicles that can damage the quality of life including
property value. In this regard, it can increase a risk of cardiovascular disease which is caused by the
movement of transport vehicles and daily operations of ports, airports, and trains. The actual situation
of transport activities on the environment where the cause has to commonly clear and well understood
to handle it. Basically, noise is an undesirable sound. Long-term sound exposure up to over 75 decibels
(dB) which the acoustic measure of the intensity of noise with a scale ranging from 1 dB to 120 dB
seriously can prevent from hearing and affect human physical and psychological. (Rodrigue, 2017).

Onwards, climate change also directly causes from the transportation systems through
infrastructure damage. For the next few decades, it will give a serious impacts on how the nation’s
transportation system functions, its design, and its spatial extent through the changes in demographic
trends, land-use patterns, and advances in transportation technology. Other than that, climate change,
particularly more precipitation events and drought, will affect a transportation system. From that, delays
caused by severe storms disturb almost all types of transportation. Severe storms will disrupt highway
traffic, leading to more accidents and delays, besides more airline traffic will be delayed or canceled
too. It proves the inadequate in storm drainage systems for highways, tunnels, airports, and city streets
come from in localized flooding. Therefore, it must be admitted that to address climate conditions is
part of the planning and decision-making process in the future of the transportation system (Meyer,
Brinckerhoff, & Burbank, 2014).

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 The effect of air pollution is highly showed that pedestrian who were walking or people who
living near heavy traffic are more exposed and tended to suffer more to these traffic air pollution
(Reynolds, Winters, & Ries, 2010). Besides that, the population that being affected is large which is
not only the transport users but also the elderly, young children, cyclist, pedestrians and pregnant
women also included in this risk (World Health Organization, 2006).

For the information, composition of the fuel used for automatic transport in many countries is
concerned about the regulation in these days. For instance, regulation as a rule provide maximum
content for components, identifying with environmental impacts. Thus, motorcar is a conformity
judgment of the most popular emission criteria. An evaluation is set up in a testing type laboratory for
suitability of gases exhaust related criteria for a motorcar, where emissions are measured by the type
of motorcar produced, during the driving cycle (Reijnders, 1999).

3. Traffic problem

People living in the city or urban area are facing a critical problem which is congestion. This
problem always occurs when there are lots of vehicles on the road. Congestion brings many negative
impacts on our environment, health and economy (Hartman, 2017). Congestion not only happened
among road transport, air and ocean transport also facing the problem of congestion.

In road transportation, congestion happened when there are high numbers of vehicles driving
on the road. Congestion is the most serious problem in the trucking industry because congestion will
cause delays in the delivery of goods and thus lead to the cancellation of the business orders (Morgan,
2018). Congestion is also one of the major problems to the public transport industry. This is because
unreliability due to congestions will leads to the public are unwilling to take the public transport to their
destination.

In air and ocean transport, congestion happened especially in the ports. There are many planes
are ready to fly but the airport capacity is below demand. The planes have to get permission before
departing. Therefore, many planes are congested in the airport. Same goes to the ocean transport. The
demand of ocean transportation is exceeding the capacity of a port. Thus, congestion is happening in
the terminal when there are many ships queuing up in order to enter the port. Moreover, there are also
some solutions that can be done to solve the problem of congestion. The solutions that suggest can help
to reduce the congestion in road, air and ocean transport. Those solutions are planning a new route in
the trucking industry, the introduction of the new policy and expand the space of the airport and seaport.

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 First of all, the management of the trucking industry should plan a new route to deliver the
goods. The manager should plan the new route to prevent from the peak hours. This can prevent the
congestion and can make sure the goods delivered on time to the customers. Besides that, the
government can introduce a new policy in the road transport to prevent congestion occurs. The
introduced of the new policy is like providing a different colour of the plate number for the car owner.
By having a different colour of the plate number may allow the car owner have a different time period
to drive on the street (Low, 2016). For example, the country like Singapore has been using this policy
to reduce congestion and at the same time increase the use of public transport.

Other than that, the solution of preventing congestion in the aviation industry is expanding the
space of the airport. As mention above, the demand for flight has been increased among this few years
but the airport capacity is below of the demand. Thus, by expanding the space of the airport can allow
more aircraft to land in the airport to prevent from congestion. Meanwhile, for the ocean transport,
congestion can be reduced by expanding the seaport. By expanding the seaport and providing more
terminals for the ship to unloading the cargo may help to reduce congestion in the seaport. Besides that,
this can also enable the goods delivered on time to the customers and prevent loss of business for the
company.

Lastly, there is some risk element in transport, one of the risk element discuss above is
congestion. Congestion may cause some problems for the road, air and ocean transport. The problems
are delaying of delivering the goods to customers, decreasing of public users and queuing in the airport
and seaport. On the other hand, by providing some of the solutions may help to reduce the congestion
in road, air and ocean transport. The solutions are planning a new route in the trucking industry, the
introduction of the new policy and expand the space of the airport and seaport.

4. Increased complexity of regulation

The regulation of transportation is an important element in development of transportation system.

The regulation improve the safety, security, and environmental harms, and to generate economic
benefits. However, the complexity of transport regulation become and cause problem to the
transportation system. Any regulations that are inefficient can have direct adverse effects for the
transport modes.

Kverndokk and Rosendahl (2010) states that transport regulation on the oil market affect the
transport industry. The main risk is fuel taxes that imposed on fuel. Transport has high demand and it
is essential for transport sector. The fuel taxation increase the price of the fuel such as diesel, petroleum

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and crude oil that necessary for commercial vehicles and for maritime industry. Mostly, road transport
consuming high level of fuel and the regulation of fuel import affecting the price of fuel. Form this
regulation, transport industry facing high complexity and high cost.

Rodrigue (2017) states that transport activities are related with growing levels of environmental
effect or consequence. The transportation modes such as vessel, heavy vehicles, trucks or prime movers
causing environmental problem that can affect air quality and emission of carbon dioxide. The
regulation of National Environmental Policy Act and Environmental Quality Act 1974 restricting the
pollution. As a major cause of carbon emission, transportation industries need to adopt and invest in
technologies to apply green transportation. The new policies and regulation pressuring the transport
industries to focus on reducing environmental impacts. Vessel that emits high level of smoke will be
restricted to enter the border of certain country that apply strict environmental regulation or the vessel
will apply some charges like summon.

Other than that, the economic regulation such as entry controls that imposed become barrier to the
transport industry. Davis (2017) state that economic policies also became less predictable. The
regulation tariffs and other agreements and licenses make a complex process to the transportation
industry. Due to the competition, governments imposing many entry barrier and agreements to enter
the country. The road transportation need to follow many producers to enter another country. Same
goes to maritime, the ship have prepare many documentation regarding cargo, safety and agreements
to avoid complexity. The deregulation also cause risk to the transportation industry. The deregulation
cause new companies enter the transport industry. For example, deregulation in Malaysia will bring
many airlines such low cost carriers that can affect the other Malaysia airlines.

5. Accidents

Accidents had been a serious issue in transportation sector. There are a lot of causes in accidents.
Accidents may lead to fatal and injuries in personal aspects, and it also will cause congestion to the
traffic and damage to the road infrastructure and buildings. It may also cause losses to the personal,
company, and the government. Accidents in transportations are majorly happened in air, rail, road and
maritime which are almost alike in that they generally involve fast moving vehicles which transporting
people or quantities of goods that might cause direct or indirect damage to the society and the
environment around the site of the accident (International Civil Defense Organisation, 2018).

Firstly, in the road transportation, the main cause of the accidents is human error. Some drivers
are irresponsible. Most of the fatal accidents occur due to over speeding. Drivers did not follow the
speed limit set along the road. Speeding in the rain is the most dangerous thing. This is due to driver
would not have clear vision when raining and over speeding in the rain will lead to lost control of the
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car. Besides, driving drunk or under influence are another factor of accidents in the road. Drunk drivers
could not make accurate judgment while driving. Nowadays, people tends to use their mobile phone
while driving especially for youngsters and businessman. Using mobile device while driving is a
distraction for the drivers. Therefore, they could not concentrate when driving (Carsome, 2017). All of
these are due to the people does not concern and about the seriousness about the issues. Thus, the
government should hold more campaign to raise the attention and awareness of the people. Next, the
car driving licensing scheme are not so strict in giving out the license. People can get the license by
giving bribes to the authority. Therefore, there are a lot of ineligible drivers on the road.

Next, maritime disasters have greatly diminished. This is because they have make a lot of
improvement to the ships and it has more efficient navigation systems. Instead, there are still collisions
happened in the maritime transportation. Most of the accidents now occur involve overloaded and old
vessels. Moreover, ferry boats are often involved in the disasters because their instability in the bad
weather, navigation errors or technical problems. Navigation is very significant in maritime and air
transportation. On the other hand, rail accidents happen when trains travelling on the same tracks collide
with each other. This could happen when there are technical faults in the rolling stock, the rails or the
security systems, or maybe due to the natural disasters which is landslides, or objects obstructing the
rails. The train driver does not have enough time to react. This type of accidents cannot be avoided.
Accidents will cause direct and indirect damage to people and the environment. For example, those
trains that carry freight or dangerous or polluting substances.

On the other hand, air accidents can be of natural, technical or human origin. For instance,
mechanical breakdowns, inattention or terrorist attacks. In this case, usually small aircrafts did not
causing the disasters as the impact of the crash are limited. The causes of air accidents are pilot error.
Pilot have the right to make any decision when facing emergency in the air. Besides pilot, the air traffic
controllers, dispatchers, loaders, or maintenance engineers also have the responsibilities to ensure the
aircrafts are safe to travel along the journey. Aircraft are complex machines that require a lot of
management (Reuters, 2015). The accidents happen on road, maritime, rail, or air transportation might
because of the loose regulations by government. Thus, government should tighten the regulations and
strict control on giving out the licenses. This could help to reduce the risk and accidents in
transportation.

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