The far-reaching economic and social developments in postwar West Germany have been accompanied by major changes in transport at the national, regional and local scale. During the period from 1948 to the beginning of the 1960s, the national communications pattern continued to be dominated by the arteries of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century industrialisation. The first fifteen postwar years were also a time when transport investment was largely geared to the redevelopment, re-orientation and technological improvement of roads, railways and waterways to assist industrial production and the movement of export traffic. Since 1960, however, there have been dramatic changes in the relative importance of these three transport media, while the rapid development of pipeline and airline systems has added to the competition. There have also been massive investments in Autobahn and urban-road construction, together with schemes for modernising, expanding and integrating urban-passenger transport.