By: Arturo Munoz, California Academy of Math and Science
Transportation: One of the most crucial aspects of society due to the need to get to places conveniently, efficiently, and of course, on time. My name is Arturo Munoz and I have decided to take on the challenge of investigating the Transportation II research topic.
This topic involves energy solutions regarding transportation methods that are, as far as I know, used globally. These transportation methods can range from large ships that carry large amounts of exports and imports internationally to a typical Metro bus that carries human passengers to several pre-designated destinations. The concepts behind all of these machines has been advancing forward continuously over the years and I have been able to witness that change in my everyday life in their physical forms. Seeing how environmentally efficient they are, I could only imagine how much more we could do to make even more technological breakthroughs to help, for instance, reduce CO2 emissions in our country.
To begin with, I have been an avid Metro bus commuter for years now and I have to say that it feels a lot better than traveling in a car. First of all, you have to think of riding the Metro in this way: Imagine every single family and individual in the bus or metro rail cars owned one car. For the sake of the example, let’s say there are 50 families of two riding the metro meaning that there are a total of 100 people on the metro. There would be 50 cars on the street releasing a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as opposed to the smaller amount of electricity used to power the rails or less gasoline to power a metro bus that carries about 30 people. We can definitely improve these technologies to make them even more efficient. We can improve public transportation greatly in design or in energy efficiency and I would definitely like to look more into this because it could be possible that one day, the majority of the public would be riding in public transportation due to the rising price of oil. This would definitely call for improvements to our public transportation system and working on it now would have the system ready for the possible influx of patrons.
Also, public transportation isn’t the only situation that can be improved. Private transportation is another matter that has been improving over the past few years when customers purchase automobiles. More fuel-efficient vehicles have been introduced lately and as they become more available, more and more people switch to hybrids or smaller cars that can achieve more miles per gallon. The price of oil has been slowly rising and the thought of spending $80 or more a week has become an extremely unpopular idea for most everyday drivers. The costs for refilling a vehicle’s tank stacks up to a large amount over time and unless people have large amounts of money, they won’t wait until gasoline is $10 per gallon to switch to a more fuel efficient car. I would like to see if companies would be willing to spend more money to develop fuel-efficient cars. The market is calling for these changes in our nation and I’m sure that the companies that have already produced a hybrid vehicle have seen how well they perform and the positive feedback from the people who can afford a hybrid.
Lastly, commercial transportation and industrial transportation play a very important role in our product-hungry society. We want products to be available at stores at moment’s notice whether we want to purchase them or not. However, to have these products at the store shelves we must consider the method of transporting these products to their designated stores. This is where industrial and commercial transportation come into play. Commercial transportation can include small vans to transport small goods and/or packages, downscaled semi-trucks to transport large amounts of goods throughout North America, and busses and taxis are also considered commercial transportation. Commercial transportation vehicles are similar to public transportation-type vehicles in terms of transporting people with buses and taxi cabs. Commercial vans and downscaled semi-trucks are also used for transporting goods. Industrial transportation vehicles can include full-sized semi trucks, cargo trains, and cargo ships. Industrial transportation is usually used for very large amounts of international goods. I know how often these methods of transportation are used and I would hope to look into possible ways of making these methods more efficient. These goods have to travel across the country at times and who knows how much air pollution is left in the wake of a full-sized semi-truck. It is possible to find alternatives for transporting all of these goods. Nothing is impossible and with time and research, we can possibly work our way to it.
I don’t expect to “build Rome in a day,” but I plan on being very committed to this topic because I believe that this research could truly make a difference in the future if implemented correctly. I believe the transportation systems around the country could be improved and I’d like to be one of the people to contribute to that cause. Ultimately, formulating these ideas with a group of students whom I have never met nor shared ideas with could provide some very valuable insight into the goal of this topic.
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