 Freight transport by motor vehicles, commonly called "motor transport" by the Soviet authorities, due to the underdeveloped nature of the nation's road network, was of considerable significance to certain areas of the economy. In the 1980s, there were 13 million laborers employed in the transport sector. Of those, about 8.5 million were employed in motor transport. Inter-city freight transport remained underdeveloped during the whole Soviet epoch, with it constituting less than 1 percent of the motor-borne freight average. These developments can again be blamed on cost and administrative inefficiencies. Road transport as a whole lagged far behind that of rail transport; the average distance moved by motor transport in 1982 was 16.4 kilometres (10.2 mi), while the average for railway transport was 930 km per ton and 435 km per ton for water freight. In 1982 there was a threefold increase in investment since 1960 in motor freight transport, and more than a thirtyfold increase since 1940. Inter-city transport and the volume of road freight transport had also increased significantly. Motor transport was much cheaper and flexible over short distances (defined as less than 200 km) than rail transport. There were many Soviet economists who argued that transferring some 100 million tons from the railways to road transport would save up to 120 million rubles. But in 1975, road transport was 27-times more expensive than railway transport, due to long distances between starting points and destinations.
