Hub-and-spoke model
Topic: World Transport and Communication · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
In a hub-and-spoke model, traffic from many small places (spokes) is gathered at one big central place (the hub). Large ships or planes run only between the hubs. Smaller feeder ships or planes then carry the goods or passengers on to the smaller places. This saves money because the biggest carriers do not have to stop at every small port or airport.
Example
Very large container ships call at Colombo (Sri Lanka). Small feeder ships then carry the containers to and from smaller Indian ports. Airlines do the same at Dubai and Singapore.
Don't confuse with
- Point-to-point network: here, every route links two places directly, with no central hub to gather the traffic.
Related concepts
- Water transport
- Containerisation
- Twenty-foot equivalent unit
- Transshipment hub
- Northern Atlantic sea route
- Mediterranean-Indian Ocean sea route
- Cape of Good Hope sea route
- Southern Atlantic sea route
- North Pacific sea route
- Honolulu