Freight forwarder
An individual or company that accepts less-than-truckload (LTL) or less-than-carload (LCL) shipments from shippers and combines them into carload or truckload lots. Carriers collecting small shipments to be cumulatively consolidated and transported relying upon a single or several modes of transportation to a given destination. Functions performed by a freight forwarder may include receiving small shipments (e.g. less than container load) from consignors, consolidating them into larger lots, contracts with carriers for transport between ports of embarkation and debarkation, conducting documentation transactions and arranging delivery of shipments to the consignees.
Freight village
A concentration (or a cluster) of freight-related activities within a specific area, commonly built for such a purpose, master planned and managed. These activities include distribution centers, warehouses and storage areas, transport terminals, offices and other facilities supporting those activities, such as public utilities, parking space and even hotels and restaurants. Although a freight village can be serviced by a single mode, intermodal facilities can offer direct access to global and regional markets.
Freight parking
An area for parking usually located outside the central business district (CBD) and most often used by suburban residents who work or shop downtown. Commonly corresponds to an access point of a transit system, such as a rail or subway station.
Fuel cell
A device that produces electrical energy directly from the controlled electrochemical oxidation of the fuel, commonly hydrogen. It does not contain an intermediate heat cycle, as do most other electrical generation techniques.
Gasohol
A blend of motor gasoline (leaded or unleaded) and alcohol (generally ethanol but sometimes methanol) limited to 10 percent by volume of alcohol. Gasohol is included in finished leaded and unleaded motor gasoline.
Gasoline
A complex mixture of relatively volatile hydrocarbons, with or without small quantities of additives, obtained by blending appropriate refinery streams to form a fuel suitable for use in spark ignition engines. Motor gasoline includes both leaded or unleaded grades of finished motor gasoline, blending components and gasohol.
Gateway
A location offering accessibility to a large system of circulation of freight, passengers and/or information. Gateways reap advantage of a favorable physical location such as highway junctions, confluence of rivers and seaboards, and have been the object of a significant accumulation of transport infrastructures such as terminals and their links. A gateway generally commands the entrance to and the exit from its catchment area. In other words, it is a pivotal point for the entrance and the exit of merchandise in a region, a country or a continent. Gateways tend to be locations where intermodal transfers are performed.
General cargo
General cargo consists of those products or commodities such as timber, structural steel, rolled newsprint, concrete forms, agricultural equipment that are not conducive to packaging or unitization. Break-bulk cargo (e.g. packaged products such as lubricants and cereal) are often regarded as a subdivision of general cargo.
Geographic information system (GPS)
A special-purpose system composed of hardware and software in which a common spatial coordinate system is the primary means of reference. GIS contain subsystems-formation and analysis; and data reporting and product generation.
GIS-T
Acronym for Transportation-oriented Geographic Information System.
Graph theory
A branch of mathematics concrned about how network can be encoded and their properties measured.
Great circle distance
The shortest path between two points on a sphere. The circumference inferred out of these two points divides the Earth in two equal parts, thus the great circle. The great circle distance is useful to establish the shortest path to useful to establish the shortest path to use when traveling at the intercontinental air and maritime level. The great circle route follows the sphericity of the globe; any shortest route is the one following the curve of the planet, along the parallels