importing transport from OS level when R3 is down

Hi,

AT the os level import of transport is done by tp command. And for any transport to be imported we need R3trans, tp tools and tp domain profile, and these are executable available at OS level. So when R3 is down ((DB is up) ideally i should be able to import Transport.

Please let me know whatever i said above is right, and if its right in which practical scenario we will require to import transport even when R3 is down.