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Section Nine
Transport
9.1 Description of the sector
As well as providing passenger services, the transport sector plays a key
role in supply chains by providing freight and delivery products. The full
impact of e-commerce on the sector is yet to be seen, but despite the
obvious threats to freight and courier services from electronic delivery,
there will be many new challenges and opportunities in the delivery of
Internet-purchased physical products.
Australia’s transport sector is comprised of providers of the four major
modes of transport, rail, road, water and air transport, as well as
providers of associated services to transport. Associated services include
port operations for water and air transport, stevedoring, freight
forwarding, and customs agency services. By statistical classification,
transport services also include pipeline transport, for example, of oil and
gas, as well as storage services.
The transport and storage sector employed over 300 000 people as at
May 1999. The sector contributed over $33 billion, or around
six per cent, of GDP in 1997–98. F igure 9.1 illustrates GDP
contributions for the industry sectors.
Figure 9.1
Transport and storage sector, gross value added, chain volume measure a
Water
Air and space
Rail, pipeline and other transport
Transport services and storage
Road
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 $ billion
a
Real Prices, base=1996–97
Source: ABS
Transport services can be either intermediary services, e.g. freight services,
or final consumption in their own right e.g. passenger services.
Understanding the role of a particular transport service in the supply
chain, whether as intermediary or as final service, is important in
understanding the impact that e-commerce will have on future costs and
business models.
Also, transport (particularly road), is a highly fragmented industry relying
on large exchanges of information. E-commerce provides the potential to
consolidate the existing structure of the industry and result in effective
information flows.
For passenger services, the Internet and e-commerce are facilitating direct
supplier to customer sales by making them cheaper and quicker. In terms
of transport that performs an intermediary role, such as freight,
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