Logistics, Multimodal & Border Infrastructure

312 BC · about 2,340 years ago

Rome began building the Via Appia

Engineered with graded foundations, drainage and a durable paved surface, the road connecting Rome toward southern Italy set construction standards that shaped the empire's some 400,000-kilometre road network and influenced road-building for centuries after.

3rd century BC · over 2,200 years ago

The Grand Trunk Road's ancient predecessor was built to connect the Mauryan Empire

An early trunk route across the Gangetic plain, later repeatedly rebuilt and extended, grew into one of the longest and oldest continuously used major roads in Asia, still carrying traffic across northern India and Pakistan today.

• Sher Shah Suri rebuilt and extended the route in the 16th century

130 BC · about 2,150 years ago

The Silk Road was formalised as an overland trade corridor under the Han dynasty

Diplomatic and military missions opened regular caravan routes linking China to Central Asia, Persia and eventually the Mediterranean, establishing the long-distance overland trade network that carried goods, technology and ideas for centuries.

605 · about 1,420 years ago

China's Grand Canal was extended to link the Yangtze and Yellow River basins

Sui dynasty engineering works joined existing waterways into a continuous inland route moving grain and goods between China's north and south, remaining in use and periodically rebuilt for well over a thousand years.

1450 · about 580 years ago

The Inca road system linked the Andes with a network exceeding 30,000 kilometres

Qhapaq Ñan connected the Inca Empire from present-day Colombia to Chile and Argentina with paved routes, suspension bridges, tunnels and way-stations, built without wheeled vehicles or draft animals and maintained by an organised relay messenger system.

1916 · 110 years ago

The Trans-Siberian Railway was completed

The line linking Moscow to the Pacific coast, built over more than two decades, opened up Siberia to settlement and resource extraction and remains one of the longest continuous rail routes in the world.

1956 · 70 years ago

The US Interstate Highway System was authorised

The Federal-Aid Highway Act funded a national network of controlled-access highways, reshaping American freight movement, urban form and car dependence and becoming a reference model for motorway networks built elsewhere in subsequent decades.

1956 · 70 years ago

Containerisation began with the first voyage of a purpose-fitted container ship

Standardised steel boxes that could move directly between ship, rail wagon and lorry without unpacking cut cargo-handling costs sharply, and the standard container became the physical basis for integrated multimodal freight transport worldwide.

1960s–1970s · 66 years ago

Multimodal transport emerged from the container revolution

Multimodal transport developed in connection with the containerisation of freight during the 1960s and 1970s. Standardised containers allowed a single consignment to pass between rail, sea and road without repacking, making integrated door-to-door carriage practical. Containerised consignments remain by far the most important form of multimodal traffic.

1964 · 62 years ago

Japan opened the Tokaido Shinkansen as the world's first high-speed rail line

Trains running at up to 210 kilometres an hour between Tokyo and Osaka created an entirely new category of rail travel, and the line's technology and operating model became the template later adopted from France to China.

1980 · 46 years ago

United Nations adopted the Convention on International Multimodal Transport of Goods at Geneva

The convention, concluded on 24 May 1980, defined international multimodal transport as carriage by at least two different modes under a single contract between places in different countries. It also framed the role of the multimodal transport operator, who bears liability for the whole journey. The instrument gave the capability its first agreed international legal definition.

1994 · 32 years ago

The Channel Tunnel opened, linking Britain's rail network to continental Europe

A twin-bore rail tunnel beneath the English Channel connected the UK directly to the continental rail network for the first time, enabling through passenger and freight services and car-carrying shuttles between Britain and France.

2025 · last year

India continued construction of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train line

Viaduct, station and tunnelling work on the Japanese-backed high-speed line advanced, with officials targeting a partial stretch for early operation ahead of the full route, well behind the project's original schedule.

2025 · last year

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey expanded the Middle Corridor freight route

Rail and port capacity along the Trans-Caspian route grew as shippers sought alternatives to routes through Russia, though congestion, multiple border crossings and limited ferry capacity across the Caspian continued to constrain volumes.

• Freight volumes rose sharply from a small base

2025 · last year

Russian strikes continued targeting Ukraine's rail infrastructure

Attacks on power substations, rolling stock and rail lines aimed to disrupt both military logistics and civilian travel, and Ukrzaliznytsia repeatedly rerouted and repaired services to keep passenger and freight trains running.

• Ukrzaliznytsia kept trains running through repeated attacks

2025 · last year

Egypt opened the first sections of its new electric rail network

Lines built under a large contract with a European-led rail consortium began carrying passengers, part of a roughly 2,000-kilometre electrified network intended to link the Red Sea coast, the Nile Delta and Egypt's northern coast.

2024 · 2 years ago

Brightline West broke ground on a high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California

Construction began on the privately led project, backed partly by federal grants and loans, aiming to cut travel time between the two metropolitan areas to about two hours on trains running mainly in an interstate highway median.

2024 · 2 years ago

China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan began construction of their long-planned connecting railway

Work started on the line, discussed for over two decades, intended to give Central Asia a more direct rail route to China and reduce dependence on transit through Kazakhstan and Russia for regional trade.

2024 · 2 years ago

Mexico completed the full route of the Tren Maya

The railway looping through the Yucatán Peninsula reached full operation, adding freight capability alongside passenger service, as the government promoted it as a driver of investment for previously road-dependent southern states.

2024 · 2 years ago

Nigeria pressed ahead with the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway

Construction of the multi-hundred-kilometre road, intended to link Lagos to the country's south-east coast, continued despite objections from environmental groups and communities over land clearance and a lack of full route documentation.

2024 · 2 years ago

Tanzania opened further sections of its Standard Gauge Railway

Additional stretches of the electrified line from Dar es Salaam toward the interior entered service, part of a project intended eventually to reach Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and cut freight transit times sharply.

2024 · 2 years ago

The Laos-China Railway carried record freight volumes

Cargo tonnage on the line linking Kunming to Vientiane kept climbing, and officials continued studying extensions toward Thailand and eventually Malaysia and Singapore as part of a longer-planned continuous rail corridor.

• Thailand continued slower-paced construction of its connecting line

2019 · 7 years ago

Signatory states left the 1980 convention unratified and not in force

The convention requires ratification by 30 countries and enters into force only 12 months thereafter. As of May 2019 just six countries had ratified, so the treaty remained inoperative. In its absence, liability across modes has been handled through the so-called network principle.