Spatial Impacts of Transport Innovations

Session organisers:

Simon Blainey, University of Southampton, S.P.Blainey@soton.ac.uk

Richard Knowles, University of Salford, R.D.Knowles@salford.ac.uk

Throughout the history of transport, innovations in transport infrastructure, vehicles and operations have frequently been developed. Some of these innovations have rapidly become part of the established landscape of transport provision, while others have proved unsuccessful and have disappeared from the scene, often leaving little trace. The impacts of transport innovations can though go far beyond their immediate contribution to facilitating the movement of people and goods, and can include potentially wide-ranging and spatially variable impacts on population, economic, social and cultural geographies, and the relative location of places. An understanding of the broader impacts of transport innovations is particularly important in the context of human-induced climate change. The urgent need to reduce transport-related carbon emissions has led to a wide range of transport innovations being proposed in recent years, but the focus on carbon reduction can mean that the broader spatial impacts of such innovations are overlooked when determining whether or not they are likely to provide a viable solution to the challenges facing transport systems.

This proposed session will explore the impacts of innovations in transport systems on transport and other geographies, with a particular focus on how these impacts vary spatially. The session will cover both the observed impacts of historical innovations and the potential impacts of ongoing and future innovations in transport systems. Contributions relating to unsuccessful or spatially restricted transport innovations would be particularly welcome, but papers relating to any form of innovation in transportation will be considered. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are welcome, as are papers from any disciplinary background. Topics could include, but are not limited to:

EScooters
Electric bikes
Bike hire schemes
TramTrains
High Speed Trains
Low cost airlines
Airships
Transit Oriented Development
Fixed Links
Roll-on/Roll off Train, Car and Passenger Ferries
Overnight Trains
Electric vehicles
Mobility as a Service (MaaS) 
 

If you are interested in presenting a paper in this session, please send a short (up to 250 words) abstract along with the names, email addresses and affiliations of all authors to the session convenors by Friday 10th March at the latest.

The session is being co-sponsored by the RGS Transport Geography Research Group (TGRG) and the International Geographical Union's Commission on Transport and Geography.

Movement

Movement is the crossing of space by people, objects, capital, ideas and other information. It is either oriented, and therefore occurs between an origin and one or more destinations, or it is more akin to the idea of simply wandering, with no real origin or destination.

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Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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