Transportation takes a big role in everyone’s life since in the past. So people used to many ways in the past to travel and transport. There are many modes of travelling at present too. As we all know ,our ancient people did not have very developed means to travel. Mostly they travelled on foot. Since the economic and social relations of the old Sri Lanka were limited to the village only. The villagers had no desire to travel to such distant regions for short journeys they went on foot.
After that they used animals like cows ,horses, donkeys to transport people and goods. After the invention of the wheel , they used carts for that. The wheel made a revolution in the field of transportation .During the British colonial period , the transportation sector in Sri Lanka was more developed Gradually , the traffic spread to the dola , man powered rickshaw, horse train and tram.
With the development of science and technology people wanted to save their time .Their needs also increased. So they went for newer , quicker means of transportation. That’s how cars , buses, vans, bicycles, trains come to use. They are very fast, comfortable and luxurious. So , today we can save our valuable time and labour. There are many developed means like jet, planes and aircrafts. So we can go to any part of the world within few hours. That is a wonder of transportation.
There are both advantages and disadvantages of transportation. In the past, there was no pollution as they did not use fuel. There were no accidents and no traffic. but at the present the situation in completely different. Due to the situation that Sri Lanka is currently facing, we can get experience this fact. In the face of the severe economic crises , getting fuel has become a big problem. The affected sectors are enormous. It is certain that transportation will face a major challenge as fuel reserves run out in the next few years.
The another main problem is the environment pollution. Smoke, sounds and other harmful gases emitted by vehicles pollute the air severely. Not only that, there is a big competition on the road among motorists. Many lives are lost daily due to these accidents. It is a very bad situation at the present.
As a solution to this problem electric vehicles have been introduced. Sri Lanka has now focused on operating electric bus service in the city of Colombo. Also, it is necessary to make the public aware to use the public transport without using their personal vehicles. Then we can contribute to minimize the disadvantaged of modern transportation.
