What is transportation?

Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to another. The term is derived from the Latin trans ("across") and portare ("to carry"). Transports have many categories such as Animal-powered transport, Aviation, Cable transport, Human-powered transport, Hybrid transport and Ship transport. Industries which have the business of providing equipment, actual transport, or goods and services used in transport of goods or people make up a large broad and important sector of most national economies, and are collectively referred to as transport industries.

What is courier?

The basic definition of "courier" is simply someone who delivers something from one place to another place. A courier is a messenger, conveying something of importance from the sending source to the receiving source. Within this definitive context, couriers and courier services can come in many different types and styles. In past times, before there were vehicles, couriers were usually just individual messengers, who traveled from one place to another to deliver news, documents, or products. Examples of this were the courier services of medieval times, which were one or more people who delivered messages or goods on horseback, or the famous pony express riders, who relayed messages or goods across the United States by passing them along from rider to rider until they reached their destination. Stage coaches were also used by courier services, as well as trains after they started coming into regular use. As time progressed and the age of technology set in, courier services began to use vehicles such as automobiles, modern trains, and airplanes. Suddenly the words "overnight" and "express" were starting to be used on a regular basis by courier services. Where once it would have taken days, weeks, or months for documents or products to be delivered, suddenly it was all becoming much more streamlined. Running a company that provided courier services was also becoming a lucrative prospect.

Types of courier services

There are as many different types of courier services as there are ways to carry messages, documents, and products. Of course, one permanently established courier service is the postal service. There are very few places in the world where mail cannot be delivered by the postal services of the various countries, especially with ever improving modern technology. The postal service is always a government run courier agency, however.

There are also many other large established privately run courier services, most of which now offer not only ground courier service, but express and overnight service. These large companies ship packages and documents all over the world - usually they can deliver any shipment that the post office can deliver.

Courier services do not have to be on a global scale, nor do they have to be only for packages and documents. In many large cities, there are courier services that actually use individual people that carry documents and messages across town. "Bike messengers" in New York City are a good example of this. When one company needs papers signed by someone in one of their across-town offices or by someone in another company, and the papers can't be faxed for some reason, or it is not papers but a package, a bike messenger can be sent. These messengers will race across town to deliver the goods from one place to another.

Standard courier services

The standard courier services that most of us are familiar with are the ones that can involve shipping to places all over the world. These companies have processes and steps that they take to make sure that documents and packages get safely and securely from one place to another. Though from the consumer's point of view the process of sending documents or packages is pretty straightforward - you give something to the courier service and it arrives where you send it - the actual process is much more involved. For instance, when you bring a package to a large courier service, the first thing that they will do is take down the pertinent information your name and address will also be placed on the package. The courier service will document information on the package weight, and charges will be applied accordingly. Most packages are automatically insured up to a certain amount, but you can insure it for more if what you are sending is more valuable than that. If you do need more insurance, then an extra charge will probably be added to the shipping price. The price will also be adjusted according to how fast you would like the package to arrive at its destination. Overnight and express shipping will, of course, cost more. Once all of this is determined, the package is then sent by truck, and if necessary, by plane also.

Overnight and same day courier services

There are courier services that specialize in overnight and express shipping. Though you will pay more for this type of courier service, it is often worth it when you want to make sure that something is going to arrive in a very short amount of time. Though almost all large worldwide courier services will provide overnight and express shipping, there are companies that have specialized in this type of service all along. Making sure that a package or document arrives overnight is no small feat. When you are sending a package from Los Angeles, California to St. Louis, Missouri and you want it to get there overnight, several factors have to come into place. For one thing, you want to make sure to get the package to the courier service as early as possible to ensure overnight or even express delivery. Though it is possible to get something shipped overnight even if you ship it late, the cost could go up considerably.

Packages that are shipped express or overnight are almost always flown to their destinations. One exception would be if you were only shipping to a place that was such a small distance away that shipment by plane would not be necessary. Although packages can be shipped using normal passenger airlines, most large courier services have their own fleet of planes, often called "cargo planes", that are for shipment purposes only.

Personal courier services

Personal courier services are usually defined as those services that send actual "messengers" from one place to another. As in the bike messenger example, the courier is usually only one person, and this person takes the message, package, or document from one place and delivers it personally to another place. These, of course, are smaller courier companies, and in some instances may involve only a few people who provide this service to established clients on a regular basis. When a company has a main headquarters in one part of a city, and an office on the other side of town, or a couple towns away, they can give a package or documents to a personal courier and this courier will use a vehicle to travel to the destination. As mentioned before, in large cities like New York City or Los Angeles, bike messengers are often used to take the shipment from one place to another, since logistics determine that with the traffic in large cities, it could be faster than driving. Many times, however, a personal courier will use a vehicle to transport the shipment when logistics determine that this would be the fastest way to deliver. The courier will be contacted, and will arrive to pick up the shipment, get the pertinent information, and will then drive to the destination and deliver the package or documents in person.

International courier services

Though almost all large courier services are international, there is one type of international courier service that stands out as different from the rest. This is the type of courier service that employs one or two actual people to deliver the shipment by traveling to the destination personally. These people are called "international couriers", and they add a much more direct and personal touch to the delivery. Becoming an international courier can take some time, but the couriers themselves often find this type of work very rewarding. When you are employed as an international courier, you often get to travel to many different types of places for free, or for a greatly reduced cost. Though a large percentage of the time most international couriers do not deliver packages or documents overnight or express, there actually are times when they have to travel at a moment's notice in order to deliver a shipment within a very short time. Many people, if the logistics of their lives allow for this type of travel, find it a very exciting way to travel, or even make a living.

historical background

Courier or postman, Japan, hand-coloured albumen print by Felice Beato, between 1863 and 1877.

Courier or Bicycles postman, America, year 1912.

In past times, before there were vehicles, couriers were usually just individual messengers, who traveled from one place to another to deliver news, documents, or products to the destination. Examples of this were the courier services of medieval times, which were one or more people who delivered messages or goods on horseback, or the famous pony express riders, who relayed messages or goods across the United States by passing them along from rider to rider until they reached their destination. Courier services, as well as trains also used stagecoaches after they started coming into regular use. As time progressed and the age of technology set in, courier services began to use vehicles such as automobiles, modern trains, and airplanes

Historical background courier serves in United States

The courier industry has long held an important place in United States commerce and been involved in pivotal moments in the nation's history such as westward migration and the gold rush. Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and rapidly became the preeminent package delivery company. The company specialized in shipping gold, packages and newspapers throughout the West, making a Wells Fargo office in every camp and settlement a necessity for commerce and connections to home. Shortly afterward, the Pony Express was established to move packages more quickly than the traditional method, which followed the stagecoach routes. It also illustrated the demand for timely deliveries across the nation, a concept that continued to evolve with the railroad , automobiles and interstate highways and which has emerged into today’s courier industry.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courier