dialogue: #Person1#: Nowadays, ships and boats are no longer so important in transportation as they used to be.
  #Person2#: True. With the extension of railways and highways, and the improvement of safety and capacity of airplanes, ships and boats have been giving place to trains, planes and automobiles.
  #Person1#: I read in the newspapers that the passenger liners from Shanghai to Ningpo and Dalian have been out of business ; and the liners up and down the Yangtze River have been reduced by 70 %.
  #Person2#: The pace of life of people is now getting faster and faster, so the speed of ships and boats seems to be so slow. I think it may be the reason why people don't like to travel by boat.
  #Person1#: But the most of the transoceanic cargo transportation is still carried by boat.
summary: #Person2# tells #Person1# that ships and boats have been giving places to other transportations because people's life is getting faster, but #Person1# thinks they are still important.
topic: transportation