Text IV. The us Transportation

In the economy of the United States the growth of large-scale production in the nineteenth century was accompanied by the rapid development of the railroad system plus some development of water transportation. In more recent times, other forms of transportation have become available and the trend toward large-scale production has continued. It certainly could not have reached its present advanced stage if it were not for the presence of an adequate transportation system at reasonable cost to bring in raw materials, parts, and supplies and to carry the mass-produced products to distant buyers.

Carriage of freight by highway is a relatively new form of transportation. Intercity trucking grew rapidly as a result of improvement in vehicles and roads and the growing demand for the kind of service the motor truck could offer. Like motor trucking, intercity bus transportation is an important part of passenger traffic though it has a definite service disadvantage in competing with the private automobile. Its disadvantage increases with distance when compared with air or rail travel because of the low speed of buses.

Low speed presents many problems for users. Users of transportation include freight shipper, receivers and passengers. Among the most important users are business firms. No wonder that flying has become a common thing. Travel by air has continued to increase, and today it is the leading type of commercial passenger travel. Air freight and air express have likewise grown, but remain relatively small in the total freight carriage picture.

Vocabulary notes

carriage ['kæridз] – перевозка, транспортировка, доставка

carriage by rail (by sea) – железнодорожная (морская) перевозка

carriage of freight [freit] – перевозка грузов

(motor) truck – грузовик

(motor) trucking – перевозка грузов автотранспортом

intercity trucking – междугородние перевозки

vehicle ['vi:ikl] – 1. транспортное средство, 2. автомобиль

intercity bus transportation – междугородние автобусные перевозки

passenger traffic – 1. пассажирские перевозки, 2. объём пассажирских перевозок

user [ju:zə] – пользователь, потребитель

freight shipper – грузоотправитель

air freight – груз, перевозимый авиатранспортом

air express – срочная пересылка (товаров, денег) авиатранспортом

Comprehension and Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think transportation is so important for the growth of large-scale production?

2. What new modes of transportation can you name? What are their advantages and disadvantages?

3. What most important users of transportation do you know? How are cargoes transported?

Ex. 1. Read the text and do the tasks:

1. Find in the text the word for new modes of transport that came into use in the twentieth century.

2. Give all the synonyms of the word “carriage”. Explain the difference between them and illustrate that with your examples.

3. Name the types of passenger transportation. Explain which of them you prefer and why.

Ex. 2. Translate the following sentences into English in writing. Make use of the Vocabulary notes, if necessary.

1. В экономике США рост крупномасштабного производства сопровождался быстрым развитием железных дорог и в некоторой степени развитием водного транспорта.

2. Новые виды транспорта появились сравнительно недавно. Без них крупномасштабное производство США не достигло бы такого высокого уровня. Транспорт доставлял сырьё, запасные части, продовольствие и увозил продукты массового производства далёкому покупателю.

3. Перевозка грузов автотранспортом сравнительно новый вид транспортирования грузов. Междугородные авто грузоперевозки быстро росли благодаря усовершенствованию транспортных средств и дорог, а также благодаря услугам, которые мог предложить автотранспорт.

4. Подобно авто грузоперевозкам, междугородные автобусные перевозки являются важной частью пассажирских перевозок, хотя и уступают в конкуренции частному автомобилю. С увеличением расстояния их недостатки возрастают из-за низкой скорости по сравнению с воздушным или железнодорожным транспортом.

5. Одним из ведущих видов пассажирского транспорта в наше время стал воздушный транспорт. Основными его пассажирами являются бизнесмены и туристы. Грузовые перевозки по воздуху и срочные пересылки товаров занимают незначительное место в общем, объёме грузоперевозок.

Ex. 3. The extracts below describe the early stage of the development of transport. Read them and make a comparison with the development of transport in Africa.

Britain was the first country in which a reasonably comprehensive railway system was created. By the end of 1850, 6,621 miles were in operation, and these included most of the main routes. Subsequent expansion went on through the construction of many branch lines, cross links, and short cuts, by a great increase of suburban lines, and by the addition of one or two more main routes between major towns. There was at first no conception of a national railway system, and railway were built and operated by a multitude of independent enterprises.

In some other countries railway development was more systematic partly because it was possible to benefit from British experience. Wherever they were built, railway widened the range of possibilities in economic activity.

Ex. 4. Basing your answer on the text speak on the Japanese car industry, what factors favoured its development and what made it so successful and competitive.

Looking at the fleets of varicoloured cars, lorries and buses rushing from traffic lights to traffic lights, from one jam to another, it is hard to imagine that Japan entered the automobile age only some 30 years ago.

The first car appeared there at the turn of the century. It was brought from abroad as a present to the Emperor. In 1902 a Japanese firm assembled a 12 h.p. car from imported components and it took another five years for the first all-Japanese car to be produced at the Tokio Motor Works. Throughout the first quarter of the century cars remained expensive toys. By 1923 the country had 12,700 cars of which only one in thirteen was Japanese-made.

On September 1, 1923, an earthquake hit Tokyo and dozens of other big cities in the Kanto Valley, destroying almost all houses and roads. There was an acute need for buses and lorries. In the mid-1930s, the government took over the motor industry, orienting it towards the manufacture of lorries.

By the time of Japan’s capitulation in World War II the motor industry (like almost all other industries) was virtually non-existent. Acute shortages of fuel and other raw materials led to a ban on the manufacture of motor vehicles. In 1946 a few were allowed to be produced, and in 1947, 300 cars. The restrictions were not lifted until 1949.

1955 is considered the beginning of the automobile age. It was then that the Japanese engineering industry absorbed billion in American military orders placed during the Korean war. Motor works were able to new equipment and technology. The demand for cars rocketed. By 1970 their output had reached 3,2 million a year. Today Japanese firms sell about 2 millions cars in the US every year. All in all, exports amounted to 7 million cars. No wonder five Japanese firms are on the list of the world’s top car producers. Toyota ranks second, just behind General Motors, Nissan is third, Matsuda ninth, Honda tenth, Mitsubishi eleventh, and Suzuki fifteenth.

In looking for explanations to Japan’s “motor miracle” on must say that the situation which took shape in the early 1970s favoured the car companies. Cuts in oil supplies in 1973 and growing fuel prices forced the manufacturers of uneconomical cars to adjust to the changed conditions and start developing new models. Meanwhile consumers did not want to and could not wait. And then the Japanese came along and offered a whole range of cheap and economical cars. Now Japan accounts for almost one third of world automobile output. Since 1980, the car industry has been affected by the general economic stagnation in Japan and other capitalist countries. In 1981 car firms had to introduce “voluntary” quotas on their exports to the US, Canada, Western Europe, South Korea and Taiwan. As for the domestic market, it is not just saturated but oversaturated. The automobilization that got under way in Japan in the mid-1950s became something of an epidemic in the next decade.

Ex. 5. Read the following texts and discuss the situation in the car markets of Europe and Asia. Use current press material.

Sales of new cars in Great Britain slid last year to just 1.6m, from the record 2.3m in 1989. So the motor industry cried for help – and was answered. The rate of car tax has been cut by half to 5%; taxi operators, car-hire firms and driving schools get relief from VAT on their vehicles; and capital-allowance limits on business cars have been raised. Many in the industry reckon all this could boost new car sales this year by 70,000.

Britain is obsessed with company cars. They account for about 60% of all new cars sold, a far higher proportion than in any other country. The benefit of a company car for private use has been taxed more heavily in recent years. This year tax would rise only in line with inflation.

There will no longer be a VAT penalty on companies that offer employees a cash alternative to a company car. With an increasing number of two-and three-car households, thousands of employees may prefer to do without yet another car and take the money instead. Or they might use the cash to buy their own car – not the new Ford or Rover offered by most firms, but a second-hand model.

A recommendation has also been adopted taxing company cars on the basis of their price. At present company cars costing less than $33,000 are taxed on engine size. This encourages employees to order cars with lots of expensive gadget. Taxing cars on their value will make company-car drivers a little more fastidious – if they bother to have a company car at all.

Ex. 6. Prepare a general discussion on problems the world’s aircraft faces now.

More than 1,000 aircraft – about 10% of the world’s entire commercial aircraft fleet – are now idle. Many are parked in deserts or at the edges of civilian airports. The newest jets, like Air Canada’s 747s, will be the first back into service when air travel picks up again. But many of the parked aircraft are more than 20 years old, and their final flight could be to the breaker’s yard. At least, than is what aircraft manufacturers hope.

In 1990 the world’s airlines lost a combined $2.7 billion on their scheduled international services alone, not counting millions more lost on many domestic routes. Last year the loss on international routes was closer to $4 billion. For the first time since 1945, air travel actually declined worldwide.

America’s Boeing, the biggest supplier, which usually accounts for about half the market, is cutting production of its 737, the world’s best-selling jet, from 21 aircraft a month to 14. But, like Europe’s Airbus Industrie and California’s McDonnell Douglas, its two biggest competitors, Boeing is soldiering on without changing its production plans for any other models.

Indeed, ambitions still abound. Both Boeing and Airbus are discussing with airlines the possibility of making a gigantic aircraft, with 600-800 seats. Both are also trying to lure Japanese aerospace companies to joint them in these multi-billion-dollar projects. In addition, McDonnell Douglas is talking to Asian companies about taking a stake in its commercial-aircraft business and jointly developing an aircraft to rival Boeing’s 747.

Despite the ranks of idle aircraft filling deserts airfields, aircraft makers insist that lots more aircraft will be needed in the future. Boeing published its long-term market forecast, which predicts that airlines will take delivery of nearly 6,000 new jets (of all makes) between now and 2000.

Such rosy forecasts assume that world air travel will grow by 5% a year for the next 20 years. Steady growth at this rate would more than double the size of the air-travel market by 2005. This may not be optimistic as it sounds. Air travel grew by 7%a year between 1970 and 1990. Even if limits on airport capacity restrain growth in America or Europe, new markets such as Asia, which Boeing expects to grow by 9% a year from now until 2010, could pull up the world average.

Even if passenger volumes grow as rapidly as the aircraft makers predict, it is unclear on present trends who will provide the gigantic sums of money that airlines will need to buy all the aeroplanes the aircraft makers hope to sell them. Lots of financial institutions piled into the market, especially Japanese investors encourages by tax breaks. But now there is a glut of aircraft. The willingness of Japanese institutions to put their money into anything with wings has evaporated with the fall in Japanese share and property values.

Boeing says there will have to be changes in the way aircraft purchases are financed. It reckons there will be a switch away from banks to international capital markets to raise the money and that more innovative financing will be developed. Compared with other industries, such as property, airlines have been slow to employ the plethora of financing techniques designed by clever brokers and investment bankers.

Ex. 7. Read the text and exchange opinions on the following problems: (a) the possible after-effect of the construction of the Channel tunnel on the competition of various modes of transport in the region; (b) recoupment period of the project and its worthiness. Make use of current press material.

Signposts on the road to Calais already offer a choice: drivers are directed to the ferries, the hoverport or the catamarans. Another set of signs remains covered. These points to the almost-complete tunnel under the sea between France and Britain. This will be officially opened on May 6^th next year. Once its novelty wanes, the tunnel could face a perilously lean time.

Eurotunnel, the Anglo-French company with the franchise to operate the link until 2042, has been forced to do its sums yet again. It revised downwards its estimate of revenue while increasing its projected costs. The group now needs to raise at least another $1.5 billion from its banks and shareholders, taking the total cost of the project to $15 billion by 1998, when the tunnel is expected to start to break even. The cost is now more than twice the original estimate given in 1987.

The project has been mired by rows with construction companies and by disputes with the suppliers of the shuttle trains that will be used to carry both passengers and cars through the rail-only tunnel in about 35 minutes. Through-trains running from London to Paris and Brussels will also use the tunnel. An extension of the French high-speed railway has already been completed to Calais. But, at the other end, the trains will have to share the line to London with slow commuter services until a controversial route for a new high-speed link can be agreed on – and financed.

Being late and over budget is hardly surprising for such a huge civil-engineering project. The first plans for a tunnel under the English Channel were drawn up in 1802 by one of Napoleon’s engineers to invade England while a fleet sailed above. Unfortunately for Eurotunnel, another fleet is now gathering at the ports of Dover and Calais. Far from being frightened and switching their ship to other routes, the ferry operators are concentrating their resources to complete directly with the tunnel.

Eurotunnel’s chief executive, has cut the estimate of Eurotunnel’s revenues in its first three years by $141m to about $2,25 billion. What those earnings eventually turn out to be will depend on how Eurotunnel sets its prices.

In theory, the Channel tunnel should wipe the ferries out in any price war. The strongest argument in Eurotunnel’s favour (although hardly one it is likely to talk about) is that a price war is not in the interests of the ferries either. If the tunnel went bust, it would not be put out of business. It is confident the ferries could retain half the market, partly because in its first year Eurotunnel’s own capacity will be limited. When the real battle for market share begins, the ferries might be allowed to team up.

This would not help to make Eurotunnel rich. Unlike the ferries, Eurotunnel will be able to tap the air-travel market. A three-hour journey by train from central London to central Paris will be a big attraction to people who would otherwise fly between the two cities. There is a snag with that – as hundreds of Britons every day learn of their cost. To take on the airlines. Eurotunnel will have to wait for British Rail to get its act together. Even with the government sharpening British Rail up for privatization, that could be a long wait.

Ex. 8. Read the following texts and use them as the basis for your interview. Work in pairs. Discuss telecommunication facilities, their development and advantages.

Telephones are as much a form of infrastructure as roads or electricity, and competition will make them cheaper. Losses from lower prices will be countered by higher usage, and tax revenue will benefit from the faster economic growth that telephones bring about. Most important of all, by cutting out the need to install costly cables and microwave transmitters, the new telephones could be a boon to the remote and poor region of the earth. Even today, half the world’s population lives more than two hour away from a telephone, and that is one reason why they find it hard to break out of their poverty. A farmer’s call for advice could save a whole crop; access to a handset could help a small rural business sell its wares. And in rich places with reasonable telephone systems already in place, the effect of new entrants – the replacement of bad, overpriced services with clever, cheaper ones – is less dramatic but still considerable.

Global phones are not going to deliver all these benefits at once, or easily. Indeed, if the market fails to develop, it could prove too small to support the costs of launching satellites. Still, that is a risk worth taking. And these new global telephones reflect a wider trend. Lots of other new communication services – on-line film libraries, personal computers that can send video-clips and sound-bites as easily as they can be used for writing letters, terrestrial mobile-telephone system cheap enough to replace hard-wired family sets – are already technically possible. What they all need is deregulation. Then any of them could bring about changes just as unexpected and just as magical as anything that Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone has already achieved.

Ex. 9. Check the knowledge of the terms by rendering the following texts in English. Make use of the Vocabulary notes.

Сингапур приступил к испытаниям электронной системы, которая будет взимать плату с автомобилистов за пользование улицами Сингапура – аналогично тому, как сейчас взимается плата за воду или за электричество.

Идея состоит в том, что в каждом транспортном средстве имеется устройство, в которое вставляется специальная карточка. Всякий раз, когда автомобиль пересекает электронный контрольный пост, детектор автоматически «снимает» с карточки владельца плату за пользование данной дорогой. В настоящее время рассматриваются три вида оплаты: пошлина за въезд, плата за километраж и плата, зависящая от степени интенсивности дорожного движения на данном участке

Как полагают, новая система, которая должна быть принята в эксплуатацию после 1996 года, станет первой в своём роде. В испытаниях будут использоваться различные типы транспортных средств (легковые автомобили, автобусы, грузовики и мотоциклы) на различных скоростях, в различных погодных условиях и при различной интенсивности дорожного движения.