Where there is reasonably good access from the farm 

 to the market or main transport network, the situation 

 is often the reverse. Farmers are familiar with new 

 techniques, and they are often eager to apply 

 fertilizers, to change from traditional farming 

 methods, and to shift to growing crops for market. An 

 all-weather road often means bus service to the nearest 

 town, new employment opportunities, as well as medical 

 care and a variety of public services. Schools can be 

 upgraded because teachers can be attracted from greater 

 distances, and buses permit consolidated schools- 

 Electricity becomes more available because the lines 

 can be more easily installed and maintained. Farm 

 machinery can be more easily repaired and new methods 

 of farm management introduced. A variety of consumer 

 goods appearing for the first time in the local market 

 provides new incentives to producers. 



Developing countries are confronting all at once 

 the need both to modernize their railways and to expand 

 their road transport in order to support industrial and 

 agricultural growth. Volumes of freight increase even 

 faster than increases in economic activity. Thus a 6 

 percent annual growth rate may involve an increase of 

 10 percent or more in goods movement. Passenger travel 

 can be expected to increase at an even faster rate. 



If developing countries double their total output 

 of goods and services over the next decade or so, as 

 many assume, freight capacity will be a primary 

 requirement. Yet transport remains primitive in large 

 areas, and the gap between developed and developing 

 countries is in many instances widening. There is 

 clearly a need for new strategies to establish 

 realistic standards, to set priorities, to increase 

 transport efficiency, and to determine how transport 

 technology can be combined with communications and with 

 solutions outside the transport field to reduce 

 transport burdens and avoid waste. 



Mobility of people and goods on a global scale is 

 also essential to socioeconomic development. From 19 50 

 to 1975, as the world population increased by 1.5 

 billion and per capita income in almost all but the 

 poorest countries doubled, world trade increased very 

 rapidly. In the 1960s, international trade increased 

 twice as fast as gross world product. New technology 

 helped the international transportation network to 

 respond. The stepped-up tempo of worldwide business 

 transactions was aided by supertankers, container 

 ships, specialized cargo vessels of many kinds, and 

 wide-bodied jet cargo planes. But the achievements of 

 transport technology on the domestic side were far less 

 impressive (Willoughby 1976) . 



Projections of world trade now indicate that very 

 large increases in the movement of both raw materials 



19«* 



