3. A complex system

The complexity of freight transport stems from the multiplicity of its component parts, which require technical adjustment and fine-tuning in space and time to ensure the overall efficiency of the system. This multiplicity of elements often corresponds to a multiplicity of economic agents involved, who must coordinate their interventions despite their distinct, if not contradictory, interests. What's more, some of these players belong to the private sphere of companies, and others to the public sphere of local or state authorities.

• Distinction between infrastructure and traffic

  One of the fundamental distinctions within the various transport techniques (with the exception of the transport of fluids by oil and gas pipeline, where it has no meaning), separates the infrastructure from the traffic it carries.

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