A Decision Framework:

Determining an organisation's transport requirement shall be based on the following underlying considerations:

• The available depots, their sizes by including movement requirements of raw materials to manufacturing units and finished products to the warehouses and on to the consumers.
• The best choice of mode available based on the distance involved.
• Product characteristics that shall further dictate the type of transport mode to be employed.
• The choice of equipment in terms of kind of transport for each requirement.
• The financial option that could be employed in terms of individual kind of equipment.
• The operation requirements in terms of usage of equipment for maximum utilization and minimum operational costs.

From the above, it is evident that transportation is one of the important facets of logistics and equally important process in supply chain management, because it has strong impact on the customer services and on overall cost. The decisions related to selection of transportation mode are prominent within the purview of firm logistics decisions due to the factors of trade off potential that exist between alternative modes of transportation and other logistics functions within the firm. Therefore, an understanding of costs and benefits of alternative transport modes, together with an in-depth evaluation of total corporate implications is mandatory. Transportation expense shall always have a direct bearing on the product costs, that means. Enhanced transport costs shall have raised prices and vice versa. Therefore, appropriate selection of the right transport mode is necessary for optimum customer satisfaction and for balanced logistics system of firm.