Different Components of Transport Time

Transport time is also an important dimension in the evaluation of transport costs, particularly since logistics concomitantly involves cost and time management. The major time related elements are:

• Transport time. Concerns the real duration of a transport, which tend to be easily understood since commonly a proportional function of distance. Geographical constraints such as weather or technical limitations such as operational speed have a direct impact on transport time. Transport time on road is technically limited to legal speed limits. For maritime and air, the limitation mainly concerns fuel economy and design speed. Although rail can accommodate a variety of speeds, tight schedules impose limited variations in operational speeds.
• Order time (not shown). Almost all transport requires a form of advance preparation, mainly to secure a capacity, an itinerary and a rate. In some cases, the order time is short and a matter of queuing on a first come first served basis, while in others orders have to be secured months in advance.
• Timing. Involves the usage of a specific departure time, which depending on the mode can have a level of flexibility. While for air and rail travel timing is commonly tight due to fixed schedules and access to intermodal capacity (such as a gate and a takeoff time) commuters and trucking have more flexibility. If there is congestion either at the origin, destination or in between, trucking companies may elect to modify their schedule accordingly (earlier or later delivery).
• Punctuality. The ability to keep a specified schedule, which can be represented as an average deviation from a scheduled arrival time. The longer the distance, the more likely are potential disruptions may affect punctuality. Some movements may have a level of tolerance to disruptions in punctuality while others, such as heading to a business meeting or flows in a just-in-time supply chain, have limited tolerance.
• Frequency. The number of departures for a specific time range. The higher the frequency, the better the level of service. However, a high frequency ties up a larger quantity of vehicles. Distance is also a factor for lower frequency since transport demand tends to decline accordingly. Combining long distance travel and frequency is an expensive undertaking for transport providers as a greater number of vehicles must be assigned to a specific route, as the case of maritime container shipping indicates.