Viewpoint: Transportation Unbounded

More tools than ever exist today to provide safe and efficient transportation through air, over water, and on land. However, the social side of transportation policy has not kept pace. For example, the regulatory reform process required to allow containerized shipping of products from point of manufacture to point of delivery anywhere in the world is ponderous and time-consuming. Many engineers might be surprised to learn that a technology providing an obvious improvement in time, cost, or energy efficiency could be slowed or halted by regulations or policy. Consumers and shippers need unified global transportation policies. Those in the transportation industry must develop policies in each country that are consistent across different modes of transportation and, ultimately, across borders. The narrow, traditional perspective of aviation, maritime, highway, and railroad transportation no longer makes sense. A fragmented or compartmentalized transportation policy is especially undesirable when dividing a dwindling pool of research funds.