Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Understandable English Podcast.
And today we are talking about transport.
So we will look at the different types of transport, the positives and negatives of each mode or types of transport, and which is most common in the UK and maybe different areas around the world.
This topic is so important because we use transport every day.
Well, most of us use transport every day.
And it can be many different types.
Even a bicycle is a mode of transport.
So a mode of transport is a type of transport.
How we move from one place to another.
So we might say a bicycle is a type of transport or a mode of transport.
A car and even by foot.
We are transporting ourselves when we walk, so a lot of people have different favorite types of transport.
For example, some people love trains and some people love flying.
They love the experience of flying And today we will talk about some of the main things.
And let's start with...
Bicycles.
So bicycles, or as we call them in the UK sometimes, bikes.
So bikes are quite a green method of transport and they are very good exercise.
A lot of people love bicycles when they use them for shorter journeys in areas where it's easy to travel by bicycle.
Of course, some countries are better for this than others.
Let's take, for example, the Netherlands.
Or as some people call it Holland.
So I just checked and I read online that in the Netherlands there are 239 million bicycles in the country.
And if we compare that to the population, there are 176 million people that live there, which means there is an average of 14 bikes or bicycles per person in the country.
So, bicycles are a very important mode of transport in the Neverlands.
If any of you are from the Neverlands, I would like to hear why bicycles are so popular.
If I had to guess, I would say it is because it's quite a small country, quite a flat country, so not a lot of hills or mountains, and the climate so the weather is quite good for cycling.
But that is just my guess.
I could be very, very wrong.
Of course, bicycles are not great in every country.
In some countries the infrastructure, so the facilities that we have, like roads and footpaths, are not designed for bicycles.
They are designed for cars, maybe there's trains and other methods, but it's quite hostile or not nice for bicycles.
And I would say the UK is like that in a lot of areas.
Some parts of the UK have a lot of bicycle lanes and are quite nice to cycle around.
For example, Edinburgh in Scotland is a city that has a lot of cyclists.
Even London is a little bit better for bicycles than other parts of the UK.
And even looking at America.
So at the USA, it is a horrible country to cycle in unless you go to a park or a designated cycle area.
They don't have the same culture of people cycling in the road or in the streets as we do have in Europe.
So one of the best parts of bicycles is that it is healthy.
It is exercise.
It gets us moving, and not only does it help us get to the location, but it has lots of benefits for our health.
Another negative can be that it is slow.
It's not as fast as driving a car. when there's no traffic.
But it is a slower method of transport in general.
So next, cars.
What do you think about cars?
I drive every day.
Sometimes I drive too much for work.
Very long distances.
And I must say, I used to hate driving.
It annoyed me so much.
And I hated traffic.
I hated motorways.
I found the whole process not comfortable, boring.
And it just annoyed me.
But the more I have driven, it has become a habit, a routine.
And I don't mind it so much now.
I try to listen to podcasts and audiobooks.
But anyway, let's look at some of the positives and negatives of driving of cars.
So one of the positives is that you can use it anytime.
You can go and get in your car, just like a bicycle, I guess.
Whereas when we use public transport, so a train or a bus, it has a set schedule, a set routine.
Certain times that you have to get it, maybe every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes.
It depends if you live in a city or maybe in the countryside, there are a lot less buses and trains.
But the beauty of a car is you can go to your driveway, get in the car and just go.
Another beauty is that you have or another benefit is that you have privacy.
So there are not other people around that you don't know.
You can sing if you want to.
You can listen to music out loud.
You can listen to a podcast.
You don't have to worry about people around you and about disturbing or annoying other people.
And that is a big benefit.
You have your own personal space.
And another benefit could be speed.
Cars can be quite fast and sometimes driving on motorways is efficient and you can get to locations nearby very comfortably.
You can drive direct to where you want to go.
You don't have to get off at a stop or a certain place and then walk to the location.
Okay, so now some negatives of cars.
And I would say the number one for me is traffic.
So when it's busy and there are lots of cars and they don't move very much.
And one car is stuck behind the other car.
So so slow to get to a location.
This is so frustrating and annoying.
Well.
This is only the start of the negatives for me.
The second negative of cars is that unless it is a green car, so maybe an electric car, which uses good energy, green energy then cars are bad for the air quality.
So they affect the air that we breathe in our cities and towns because of the CO2 that they emit.
Another negative of cars can be...
A big one, cost.
They're quite expensive to run.
So not only do you need to buy a car or rent a car, you need to pay for insurance fuel, maybe repairs, servicing all of this stuff every year.
And it's quite an expensive type of transport.
What do you think?
What is your favorite type of transport?
So another type of transport, and the last one we will talk about today, because if I talk about trains planes everything, we could be here all day.
So the next type I will talk about is airplanes.
So flying.
Airplanes are a fast method of transport in some way.
And I want to make a separate episode of this podcast about flying.
So about airports and the whole process of flying.
Because it's something I unfortunately do a lot with my job.
And I hate airports.
I don't like them.
I don't like the process.
But flying itself is fast.
Once you're in the air, you can travel from country to country, location to location, much faster than you could do by train or car.
But the extra time in airports and security and waiting makes that journey so much longer, especially for shorter distances, which is definitely a negative.
Another negative is that it is terrible for the environment.
Really bad for the environment.
And unless you're in business class or upper class, first class they call it sometimes it isn't so comfortable.
You can have crying babies, some noisy people, not much room for your legs, among other things.
But one benefit I think of flying is it's quite cool.
It's nice to be high in the sky, able to look around at the clouds and the small land below you.
It's nice.
I like it.
And I do enjoy flying from time to time.
Of course, some honorable mentions to other types of transport would include trains.
So trains can be a great way to travel.
Lots of people can travel on one train.
And it's good for short to medium distances, in my opinion.
It's quite a comfortable way to travel.
However, especially here in the UK, we have lots of problems with trains.
Cancellations, delays.
A delay is when something is late.
It isn't on time.
So the time it's meant to be.
And this makes trains not such a fun way to travel in the UK.
And they are also so expensive, almost most of the time more expensive than flying.
So I fly to England for work and I live in Northern Ireland.
And some people who travel to the same place that I fly to from other parts of England pay more for their train tickets than I pay for flights.
Sometimes twice more, two times more expensive to travel a smaller distance by train.
That is crazy to me.
Anyway, let me know what trains are like in your country.
And if you're watching or listening on Spotify, answer the question what your favorite type of transport is.
And if you're watching this or listening to this on YouTube, please leave a comment below and tell me what your favourite type of transport is.
Thank you for listening and I hope to see you in the next episode of Understandable English.
Goodbye.
