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Transport and Communication NCERT Chapter Notes CBSE Class 12 Geography Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Geography NCERT Chapter Notes for Transport and Communication Humanitas
16 April 2025 by
Akash Kumar

Transport and Communication NCERT Chapter Notes CBSE Class 12 Geography Humanitas

CBSE Class 12 Geography NCERT Chapter Notes for Transport and Communication


Transport and communication are essential for economic and social development, enabling the movement of people, goods, and information. Transport includes road, rail, air, and water systems, while communication involves traditional and digital means like phones and the internet. Both play a crucial role in global connectivity and efficiency.

Transportation 

  1. Transport is a service or facility for the carriage of persons and goods from one place to other using humans, animals and different kinds of vehicles. 
  2. Roads and railways form a part of land transport 
  3. Shipping and waterways and airways are other two modes 
  4. Pipelines carry material like petroleum, natural gas, and ores in liquified form. 
  5. Transportation is an organized service industry created to satisfy the basic needs of society.

Modes of Transportation 

The significance of a mode depends on the type of goods and services to be transported, costs of transport and the mode available. 

Principal modes of transportation are :- 

  • Land
  • Water
  • Air
  • Pipeline 

Land transport 

Land transport is the movement of people, animals, or goods on land using vehicles, roads, or railways. 

  1. Most of the goods and services takes place over land.
  2. In early days, humans themselves were carrier. Example – palanquin(palki/doli), kahar, etc.
  3. Later, animals were used as beasts of burden. Ex- horses, camels, mules, etc. 
  4. The revolution in transport came about only after the invention of steam engine in the eighteenth century.
  5. The first public railway line was opened in 1825 between Stockton and Darlington in northern England and then onwards, railway became most popular and fastest form of transportation in the nineteenth century. 
  6. The invention of the internal combustion engine revolutionised road transport. 

Roads 

  1. Road transport is the most economical for short distances compared to railways. 
  2. Freight transport by road is gaining importance because it offers door to door service. 
  3. The rail kilometrage being small cannot serve the needs of vast and developing countries at a low cost. Roads therefore, play a vital role in a nation’s trade and commerce and for promoting tourism. 
  4. The quality differs a lot between developed and developing countries because road construction and maintenance requires heavy expenditure. 
  5. In developed countries, good quality roads are universal and provide long distance links in the form of motorways, autobahns and interstate highways for speedy movement. Lorries of increasing size and power to carry heavy loads are common. But unfortunately, the world’s road system is not well developed. 
  6. World’s Total motorable road length – 15 million km. of which north America accounts for 33% . 

Highways 

  1. Highways are metal roads constructing distance places. They are constructed in a manner, unobstructed vehicular movement. In developed countries, every city and poor town is linked through highways. 
  2. In North America, highway density is high, about 0.65 kilometres per square km Every place is within 20KM distance from a highway. 
  3. The Trans Canadian highway links Vancouver in British Columbia to st. john’s city in Newfoundland and Alaskan Highways links Edmonton to Anchorage.
  4. The Pan American highway, a large portion of has been constructed, will connect the countries of South America, Central America and USA- Canada. The Trans Continental Stuart Highway connects Darwin and Melbourne via Tinette Creek and Alice Springs in Australia. Europe has a large number of vehicles and well-developed highway networks. But highways face a lot of competition from railways and waterways 
  5. In Russia, a high-density network is developed in the industrialised Region west of the world with Moscow as the hub. Due to vast geographical area highways in Russia are not as important as railways.
  6. In China highways crisscross the country, connecting all major cities such as Tsungtso, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.
  7. In India, there are many highways linking the major towns and cities, for example, national highway NH7 connecting Varanasi with Kanyakumari is the longest in the country. Golden Quadrilateral or Super Expressway underwear to connect the four metropolitan cities. New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Kolkata and Hyderabad. 

Border roads

Roads led along international boundaries are called border roads. They plan important role in integrating people in remote areas with major cities and providing defence. Almost all countries have such roads to transport goods to border villages and military camps 

Railways

  1. Railways are a mode of transport for bulky goods and passenger over long distance.
  2. The railway gauges vary in different countries and roughly classified as broad (>1.5m), standard (1.44m), meter gauge(1m) and smaller gauges. 
  3. Commuter trains are very popular in UK, USA, Japan and India. These carry millions of passengers daily to and from in the city. There are about 13 kilometres of railways open for traffic in the world 
  4. Europe has one of the densest railway networks in the world About 4,40,000 kilometres of railways. 
  5. Transcontinental railways blinds have now lost their importance to quicker and more flexible transport systems of airways and roadways.

Transcontinental railways 

Trans-continental Railways run across the continent and link its two ends. They were constructed for economic political reasons.

The following are the most important of these: 

Trans-Siberian railways 

  1. Major rail route located in Russia 
  2. Run from St Petersburg in the West to Vladivostok on Pacific Coast in the East, passing through Moscow, Ufa, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Chita and Khabarovsk. 
  3. It is the most important route in Asia and longest 9332 kilometres, double tracked and electrified transcontinental railway in the world. 
  4. It has helped in opening up its Asian region to west European markets. 
  5. It runs across the Ural Mountains and Yenisei rivers Chita is an important agro- centre and Irkutsk, a fur centre. 

Trans Canadian railway 

  1. Major rail route located in Canada. 
  2. This 7050 km long rail line in Canada runs from Halifax in the east to Vancouver on the pacific coast passing through Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Calgary. 
  3. It was constructed in 1886, initially as an agreement to make British Columbia on the west to join federation of states. 
  4. It has a great economic significance because it connected the Quebec Montreal industrial region with the wheat belt of the prairie region and the coniferous forest region in the north. 
  5. Wheat and meat are the important exports on this route. 
  6. This line is economic artery of the Canada 

The union and pacific railway 

  1. This rail line connects New York on the Atlantic coast to San Francisco on the pacific coast passing through Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Evans, Ogden, and Sacramento.
  2. The most valuable exports on this route are ore, grain, paper, chemicals and machinery. 

The Australian transcontinental railway 

  1. This rail line runs west east across the southern part of the continent from Perth on the west coast to Sydney on the east coast, passing through Kalgoorlie, broken hill and port Augusta. 
  2. Another major north south line connects Adelaide and Alice Spring and to be joined further to Darwin Birdum line. 

The orient express 

  1. This line runs from Paris to Istanbul passing through Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade. 
  2. The journey time reduced from London to Istanbul by this express is now reduced to 96 hrs as against 10 days by the sea route. 
  3. Chief exports are cheese, bacon, oats, wine, fruits and machinery

Water transport 

Water transportation, also known as shipping, is the movement of people or goods by water. 

Advantages of water transportation :- 

  1. It does not require route construction whereas railways require. 
  2. The ocean waters are inter-connected. 
  3. It is cheaper over railways and the friction of water is far less. 
  4. The energy cost of water transport is also lower than railways. 
  5. Water transport is suitable for heavy tonnage. 

Water transport is divided into two routes :- 

  • Sea routes 
  • Inland waterway 

Sea Routes 

  1. The oceans offer a smooth highway traversable in all directions with no maintenance costs.
  2. Its transformation into a routeway by sea going vessels is an important development in human adaptation to the physical environment. 
  3. Modern passenger liners and cargo ships are equipped with radar, wireless and other navigation aids. 

Important sea routes 

major sea routes are as follows: 

1. Northern Atlantic Sea route 

  1. This links north-eastern USA and western Europe, the two industrially developed regions of the world. 
  2. The foreign trade over this route is greater than that of the rest of the world combined. 
  3. 1/4th of the worlds foreign trade moves on this route. 
  4. It is therefore, the busiest in the world and otherwise, called the Big Trunk Route. 

2.  The Mediterranean-Indian Ocean Sea Route 

  1. This sea route passes through the heart of the old world and serves more countries and people than any other route. 
  2. Port said, Aden, Mumbai, Colombo and Singapore are some of the important ports on this route. 
  3. The Suez canal has greatly reduced the distance and as compared to the earlier route through the cape of good hope. 

3. The Cape of Good Hope Sea Route 

  1. This trade route connects the highest industrialised western European region with west Africa, South Africa, East Asia and the commercial agriculture and livestock economies of Australia and New Zealand. 
  2. The volume of trade and traffic between both East and East Africa is on the rise due to development of rich natural resources.


4. Southern Atlantic Sea Route

  1. The sea route Here’s another important one across the Atlantic Ocean, which connect West European and West African countries with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay in South America. 
  2. The traffic is far less on this road because of the limited development and the population in South America and Africa. 
  3. There is also little traffic on the route between Rio De Janeiro and Cape Town, because both South America and Africa have similar products and resources. 

5. The North Pacific Sea Route

  1. This sea route links the port on the west coast of North America with those of Asia. 
  2. These are Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles on the American side. And Yokohama, Kobe, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Manila and Singapore on the Asian side. 
  3. Direct route on the Great Circle Links, Vancouver and Yokohama and reduces the traveling distance (2480km)by half. 

6. The South Pacific Sea route 

  1. This sea root connects Western Europe and North America with Australia, New Zealand and the scattered Pacific Islands via the Panama Canal. 
  2. The distance covered between Panama and Sydney is 12,000 kilometres. 
  3. Honolulu is an important port on this route.

Shipping Canals 

A shipping canal is a waterway built to allow ships to pass through, usually connecting to seas, rivers, or lakes. 

The Suez and Panama canals are the two vital man-made navigation canal which serves as gateways for both eastern and western worlds.

The Suez Canal 

  1. The canal had been constructed in 1869. 
  2. In Egypt, between Port said in the north and Port Suez in the south, linking the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. 
  3. It gives Europe a new gateway to Indian Ocean and reduces direct sea route distances between Liverpool and Colombo, compared to the cape of good hope route. 
  4. It is of sea level canal without locks, which is about 160 kilometres and 11 to 15 meters deep. 
  5. It takes about 10 to 12 hours to cross this canal. 
  6. The tolls are so heavy that some find it cheaper to go by the longer cape route, whenever the consequent delay is not important.
  7. A navigable fresh water canal from the Nile also joins the Suez Canal in Ismailia to supply fresh water to port said and Suez. 

The Panama Canal 

  1. It connects the Atlantic Ocean in the East to the Pacific Ocean in the West. 
  2. It is 72 Km long and involves a very deep cutting for a length of 12 Km. 
  3. It shortens the distance between New York and San Francisco by 13,000km by sea. 
  4. It has a six-lock system and ships cross the different levels through these locks. 
  5. The distance between the Western Europe and the west Coast of USA and North Eastern and Central USA and East and South East Asia is shortened. 
  6. It is vital to the economies of Latin America.

Inland waterway

  • Factors affecting the development of inland waterways 
  1. navigability
  2. Continuity in water flow 
  3. Use of latest transport technology 
  • Very heavy cargo like coal cement timber and metallic cores can be transported through inland waterways.
  • Despite inherent limitations, many rivers have been modified to enhance their navigability by dredging, stabilising river banks and building dams and barrages for regulating the flow of water.
  • In ancient times, riverways were the main highways of Transportation, as in the case of India. 
  • Recently, they have lost importance due to competition from railways, lack of water due to diversion for irrigation and their poor maintenance.


Some of the world’s most importance inland waterways are as follows:- 

Rhine Waterway 

  1. The rhine flows through Germany and the Netherlands. 
  2. It is navigable for 700km from Rotterdam at its mouth in the Netherlands to Basel in Switzerland. 
  3. The Ruhr river joins the rhine from the east. 
  4. This water way passes through a rich coal field & prosperous manufacturing area. 
  5. Huge tonnage moves along this waterway. 
  6. It is the world’s most heavily used waterways.

Danube waterway

  1. It serves Eastern Europe. 
  2. It rises in Black Forest. 
  3. It is navigable up to Taurna Severin. 
  4. Its chief export items are Wheat, maize, timber and machinery.

Volga Waterway 

  1. Russia has a large no. of developed waterways, of which the Volga is one of the most important. 
  2. It provides a navigable waterway of 11,200 km and trains into the Caspian Sea. 
  3. The Volga Moscow Canal connects it with Moscow region and the Volga don Canal with the Black Sea.

The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence Seaway 

  1. The Great Lakes of North America –Superior, Huron Erie, Ontario are connected by Soo canal and Walland canals to form an inland waterway. 
  2. The estuary of St. Lawrence River, along with the Great Lakes forms a unique commercial water-way in the Northern part of North America. 
  3. The ports on this route are well equipped with all facilities of ocean ports.

The Mississippi Waterways 

  1. The Mississippi, Ohio waterway connects the interior parts of USA with the Gulf of Mexico. 
  2. Large streamers can go through this route up to Minneapolis. 

Air Transport 

Air transport refers to the movement of passengers, goods, or mail through the air using aircraft, such as airplanes, helicopters, and cargo planes.

  1. It is the fastest means of transport ;but at the same time, it’s very costly.
  2. Being fast it is preferred by passengers for long distance travel. 
  3. It is often used for transportation of valuable cargo. 
  4. Often, it is the only means to reach inaccessible areas. 
  5. It has brought about a connection revolution in the world. 
  6. The friction created by mountainous snow fields or inhospitable desert terrains have been overcome.
  7. Airways also have great strategic importance. The air strikes by USA and British forces in Iraq bears testimony to this fact. 
  8. The construction of airports is also very expensive and has developed more in highly industrialised countries where there is a large volume of traffic.

Inter-Continental Air Routes 

  • Dense network exists in Eastern USA, Western Europe and Southeast Asia. U.S.A. alone accounts for 60% of the airways of the world 
  • New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Rome, Moscow, Karachi, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago are the nodal points where air Routes converge or radiate to all continents.
  • Africa, Asiatic part of Russia and South America lack air services. There are limited air services between 10-35 latitudes in the Southern hemisphere due to sparser population, limited landmass and economic development.

Pipelines 

  1. Water, petroleum and natural gas for an uninterrupted flow. 
  2. Water supplied through pipelines is familiar to all. 
  3. Cooking gas or LPG is supplied through pipelines in many parts of the world.
  4. Pipelines can also be used to transport liquefied coal. 
  5. In New Zealand, milk is being supplied through pipelines from farms to factories. 
  6. In U.S.A., there is a dense network of oil pipelines from the producing areas to the consuming areas.

The Advantages of Pipeline:

  1. Pipelines provide uninterrupted flow of water, gas and petroleum. 
  2. Initial cost of laying pipelines is high but, the running cost is minimal. 
  3. They are eco-friendly, do not contribute to the pollution and save fuel. 
  4. It rules out trans-shipment losses or delays. 
  5. These can be laid in difficult terrains, underwater, and dense forested areas.

Problems:

  1. Leakage in the pipelines is difficult to detect. 
  2. Safeguarding the pipeline from the extremists is very difficult. 
  3. These are not flexible and cannot give door to door services.
  4. Once laid, capacity cannot be increased.

Cyberspace 

  1. Cyber Space is very important in today’s life. 
  2. It enables us to communicate or access any information without physical movement of the sender and the receiver. 
  3. It has brought the world closer to each other. 
  4. One can now communicate with any person in any part of the world. 
  5. It can be used in an office, sailing boat, flying plane and virtually everywhere. 
  6. Cyber space has expanded the contemporary economic and social space of humans through e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance. 
  7. It will be accessible to more and more people cutting across space and time under these circumstances. 
  8. These modern communication systems have made the concept of ‘Global Village’ a reality.

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