FREIGHT TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS

Abstract

The explanation stating that logistics is a transportation leads to the creation of an un comprehensive transport policy. This is because the logistics consists of various activities scattered throughout the work of the service organization. Transportation is therefore only one of the activities of logistics. The aim of logistics management is to provide the lowest total logistics cost and customer satisfaction with the products and logistics services. The goal of transportation management in the company is not only to achieve the lowest transportation costs but to provide responsive transport services according to customer requirement both the products and services. Transportation consists of 5 modes of transport, namely transportation by truck, train, ship, airplane and pipeline.  They are organized according to the effective transport modes, via pipelines, ships, trains, trucks and airplanes respectively.  Effective transportation is not just transportation at a low cost. However, the public and private sectors of Thailand consider that transportation by truck is low cost; about 80 percent of Thai trucks use Thai products. Therefore, about 80 percent of trucks are used for transport products in Thailand resulting in high Thai logistics costs when compared to some countries. In fact, in logistics management all related logistics costs involved must be considered including inventory cost repeated product handling costs and product delivery time. Only knowledge about product transportation with logistics leads to government policies to change to use the appropriate and cost-effective transportation methods.