GENERAL
The transport of luggage presents many forms of mobility and transport modes with great challenges and problems with regard to efficiency.
With sustainable and active forms of mobility as with walking or cycling as well as all forms of public transport, the carrying of luggage represents a great restriction to comfort or is in part not possible at all. This circumstance also has a relevant influence on the choice of means of transport, which is why autos are often used for everyday mobility, e.g. when shopping or travelling. For example, 80% of Austrian winter holidaymakers state that they have chosen the auto instead of the train for their journey to their holiday destination, as transporting their luggage is otherwise too tedious.
With the train too small or simply wrongly dimensioned luggage racks mean that luggage cannot be stowed properly and is subsequently parked in such a way that seats and aisle areas are partially blocked. This leads to in some cases greatly extended passenger exchange times and corresponding delays as well as to a lower degree of actually realisable capacity utilisation in the trains. Both have a significant influence on economic efficiency. Especially long-distance trains are affected but also to a large extent local trains that serve as feeder lines to long-distance traffic or airports, as well as urban means of transport.
In public transport , both in urban traffic such as trams, buses, underground or suburban trains with feeder functions to large stations and airports as well as in regional bus connections, especially in tourist regions, the volume of luggage can be large at certain points as well as long-term, which can lead to explicit problems in operations due to the frequent lack of well-suited storage facilities and can pose a major safety risk.
In air traffic, both checked luggage and increasingly hand luggage taken on board, is increasingly causing problems during operations. Luggage that cannot be stowed away properly leads in particular to problems in the boarding process with associated prolonged operating procedures and delays.
In car traffic , both in private and especially in taxi and feeder traffic, today's luggage often leads to capacity problems due to undersized luggage compartments.
In stationary luggage depots, no matter if lockers are in railway stations, airports or in hotels that store luggage for guests temporarily, unsuitable dimensions for storage possibilities lead to inefficient storage conditions for today's luggage.