Travel. It’s an everyday part of most people’s lives. In fact, we all travel for many different reasons. Some for work, others for pleasure. Regardless of why you travel, you have to admit, it plays a very important role in today’s world. However, this does spark a pretty interesting question: What is the most used form of travel?
Now, there are several different ways to address this question. I mean, are we talking about the most common form of everyday travel? Are we taking about long distance traveling? What about the most widely used form of freight transport? Each question could generate a different answer, but today, we are going to cover the most widely used mode of passenger transport worldwide.
The winner in this category will not shock most people, it’s the automobile. This is a form of travel that is able to more than double the second most used form of travel, the bus. It’s pretty easy to see why the automobile won here. Other forms of travel, like rail and air, are popular, but not everyone uses them in their everyday life. Let’s face it, there are billions of people out there that have their own personal car. How many out there have their own personal plane? Certainly not me!
However, it is worth noting that air travel did manage to come in third place right behind buses. This was followed by railways and then urban rail. All of these forms of travel offer something different and unique in their own way. In fact, it would be difficult to image life without these forms of transportation.
It may also be worth noting that the freight industry is much different. In fact, the most commonly used form of freight transport is actually by sea followed by road. Rail is able to come in third place in this category. Thus, just changing the question slightly, gets you a completely different answer.
Although the automobile may be the most widely used form of travel worldwide, there are some countries out there that differ. For example, in China, the most convenient way to travel is by bus. When traveling between big cities, tons of people are able to pack onto one bus and make the trip together. If you venture outside big cities in China, you will notice that one of the most common forms of travel is still the bicycle.
Egypt, on the other hand, likes to use automobiles much like the rest of the world. However, just because they like to use them, does not mean it is always safe to do so. In fact, Egypt holds the record for highest incidence of road fatalities per mile driven (if that is a record anyone should be proud of). Mostly, this has to do with the fact that there are few road markers or road signs at all when driving through much of Egypt. On top of that, many traffic lights in Cairo do not even function. Luckily, there are typically policemen at intersections directing traffic.
Alright, we have covered a lot of different forms of travel today. However, there is still one question that I really wanted to know the answer to: What is the most efficient form of transportation in terms of energy input being converted to motion? Despite all the breakthroughs in travel and all the different forms of fuel, bicycles are still the most efficient form of travel. You get more forward motion out of the fuel you put in a bike (which in this case would be the calories you are burning) than the forward motion you get out of a car by burning fuel. Same goes for coal, electricity, you name it. That being said, maybe traveling by bike isn’t so bad after all.
Travel differs for everyone. So what’s your most used form of transportation?
