Page 90 - SST Class 04

Unit IV : Transport and Communication

Means of

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Transport

Transport and I

Every person needs to travel. You need to travel from home to school
and back. Sometimes you need to travel to other cities and countries.
Sometimes goods are required to be sent to other places. We can meet
these needs with the means of transport. Thus, the means of transport
play a vital role in our life.

We need a variety of transports for travel and transportation of goods. They vary as per

the place, distance and expenditure. There is a large variety of transports around us.
Bullock carts, rickshaws, bicycles, tractors, two-wheelers etc., are common in villages
and small towns; while two-wheelers, three-wheelers, cars, buses etc., are common in
large cities. Science and technology have helped to achieve a great progress in this field.

Types of Transport

The means of transport can be divided into three types : means of land transport ,
means of water transport and means of air transport .

Means of Land Transport
The means of land transport run on the land. The roadways and railways are more
commonly used in our country.

1. Roadways : India has a very large network of roads; it measures over 59 lakh km,
which is the world’s second largest. Roads carry about
85 percent of all passengers and 61 percent of all goods.

The roads can be classified as per their importance :
u National highways are the longest and most

important roads which connect major cities of the
country. These are built and maintained by the
central government .

90 Contemporary Social Science-4