Transportation is the key to success especially in business where responsiveness and product availability are key competitive factors. Transportation contributes to the overall economic activity and provides opportunity for growth. Your company which is a Logistics Service Provider (LSP) has recently signed a five-year contract with ESKOM. This contract will see your company being responsible for: The movement of goods from a source to a destination, warehousing and inventory. The more efficient the transportation the lower the supply chain costs for a given inventory and facilities configuration. A selected mode of transportation for a particular business is part of its strategic decision framework and the decision on choice of mode is crucial for cost and desired service levels. Although aggregation would result in reduction in facility costs and inventory management costs, it would increase transportation costs. Other things being the same, temporal aggregation reduces cost of transportation to the extent of reducing the fixed cost of multiple shipments. Questions: 2.1.1 Who are the major role players in a transportation decision? (5) 2.1.2 What are the alternate modes of transportation that is available? Briefly define each.