Introduction

Question 1

Describe the history of Transport Geography.

Answer 1

First recognized as sub-discipline in 1954
Early work is linked to ‘Quantitative Revolution’ and the post-WWII boom in infrastructure construction & need for a rational transport planning approach that facilitates growth of transport
From 1970s geography saw a diversification away from ‘positivism’ and quantitative methods in wider discipline – e.g. radical/Marxist, humanist, feminist, post-structuralist geographies. Transport geography follows reluctantly and hesitantly – e.g. strong stream of feminist geography work on transport with authors like Susan Hanson and Mei-Po Kwan.
However,
A strong quantitative orientation remains, due to:
- The sub-discipline’s strong linkages to economics & engineering within ‘transport studies’
- Developments in geo-computation, GIS and most recently big data

Question 2

What are Transport Geography’s key concerns?

Answer 2

• Structure & dynamics in transport networks and interaction patterns at different scales, from the global (aviation, maritime) to city & neighbourhood levels
• The relationships of transport infrastructure & economic development
• The relationship transport infrastructure and patterns with socio-spatial inequality and exclusion
• The challenge of making transport more sustainable: reduce greenhouse gas emissions & energy consumption and improve air quality
• The relationships between transport and health:
  Access to healthy food
  ‘Active’ travel
• Changes in transport policy & governance

Question 3

How is transport geography carried out?

Answer 3

There is a caricature of transport geography as positivist, unconcerned with the experience of movement - this is WRONG. As a whole it is more diverse than it is made out to be (particularly by mobilities geographers).

Question 4

Strengths of Transport Geography?

Answer 4

Descriptive understanding of where movement occurs, and how this changes over time and space
Some understanding of causes in differences and dynamics in movement and accessibility
Understanding of economic, social and environmental consequences of (changes in) movement and accessibility for individuals, social groups and places
Understanding of all kinds of inequalities between social groups and places
Policy relevant research and ‘impact’ beyond academia
Many different perspectives on the object of interest because of its internal heterogeneity

Question 5

Critiques of Transport Geography?

Answer 5

Slow to adapt to conceptual, theoretical and methodological innovations elsewhere in the discipline (the ‘insularity’ question)
Tendency among many – but not all! – transport geographers to work with ontological, epistemological, methodological frameworks that resonate with engineers, economists, urban planners, etc. but less with many (most?) geographers in UK & USA
Tends to see movement as a) a cost to be reduced/minimised and b) deriving from fixed distribution of activities in physical space
Limited insight in the embodied experience, the practice and the politics of (non)movement
Ultimately, limited capacity to understand change and transformations in (non)movement, transport and accessibility

Question 6

What are the 4 key ideas of Mobilities studies?

Answer 6

1) Mobility is multiple – mobilities – and mobilities are interconnected and enabled by immobilities
2) Mobility precedes fixity or stability
3) Mobility is more than movement from A to B
4) Mobility is social and spatially uneven

Question 7

Strengths of Mobilities Geography?

Answer 7

Deeper understanding of why movement occurs
Deeper understanding of the experience of movement
Reassessment of concepts of travel time and speed and efficiency – greater emphasis on affordances
Politics of mobility to be studied more effectively
Transport geography to become more firmly embedded in social science

Question 8

Critiques of Mobilities Geography?

Answer 8

Cresswell (2010) critiques ‘new mobilities paradigm’ for suggesting that the previous work on mobilities is no longer relevant/was focused on the immobile, and that there has been a revolutionary shift where previous work on it is erased.
Lack of acknowledgement of existing work being drawn upon – transport geography and/or well established theoretical work (e.g. Seamon, Giddens, Bourdieu)
Limited understanding of transport geography and the work transport geographers have been doing –sometimes unnecessarily antagonistic (particularly in 2000s)

Question 9

Why is it important to bring Transport and Mobilities together?

Answer 9

(Shaw and Hesse, 2010) Better to think of Transport & Mobilities as a spectrum rather than a binary - arguably suggests there is only one axis (rather than branches) -> problematic?
Mobilities researchers are keen to link forms of movement across scales from the body (where all human mobility is immediately experienced and recognized) to the wider remit of regional, national and international travel - Work such as this is just as much ‘transport geography’ as it is mobilities research and there is clearly great potential in any bridge building that might occur between these two trajectories.
Both have shared interests and links to bigger issues, e.g Climate change, Transitions to post-carbon mobility system, Spatial and social inequality and Big data.