Transportation geography – new regional mobilities

Abstract

Regional approaches to transportation geography continue to adjust to changing relationships at multiple scales. Theoretically, it is the region that provides meaningful connections between the global and the local, although conceptualizing the region has proven quite challenging. Just as transport is frequently treated merely as a means of moving people and goods from one place to another, so regions are often viewed as unproblematized spatial containers with little analysis of their meaning or structure. Inadequate theory and context can present significant empirical challenges for transportation geographers working at the regional scale. This is especially important as markets continue to widen, transportation becomes ever more sophisticated, mobility increases, and traditional notions of the boundaries of political states are changed.In the fi rst of three reviews, advances in transport geography at the global scale were discussed, with an emphasis on research that explicates transport's role in structuring the global system and making global-local interactions possible. The fi nal review will

Transport geography and new European realities: a critique

“…In recent years, Keeling (2007Keeling ( , 2008Keeling ( , 2009) has helped to redress this with considerations of transport geography at different spatial scales. However, some of these, and earlier, evaluations have not been necessarily flattering to the sub-discipline, or perhaps more accurately to the practitioners of transport geography and the image of the sub-discipline they are perceived to have projected.…”

“…Earlier, Rimmer (1978Rimmer ( , 1988 was also critical of the role of quantitative modelling, calling for a more 'humanistic' transport geography. This is clearly a debate that extends across Europe and is not just an Anglo-American issue (Graham, 1999;Goetz, 2006;Keeling, 2008Keeling, , 2009. For example, Kaufmann et al (2008, p. 15) from Lausanne, Switzerland, in evaluating French transport policy research during the 1990s pointed, pejoratively, to an ''obedience to the technico-economic reality".…”

Assessments of Modal Split in Long-distance Passenger Transport

“…In it, an increasing role is played by experts with a technical rather than social background (Hanson 2006), which is also influenced by a shortage of "soft" theoretical approaches in transport as well as transport geography itself (Goetz et al 2004: quoted in Goetz et al 2009). The existing approaches in transport were challenged by a group of researchers (primarily sociologists) associated within the "new mobilities paradigm" (in particular Sheller, Urry 2006, with further discussions by Shaw et al 2008;Keeling 2008). Their attention is paid to the effort to clarify and understand the motivation of journeys and real human mobility as well as the interest in emotional and symbolic components of transport behaviour (Brůhová-Foltýnová et al 2008) with the use of qualitative research methods.…”

Measuring the exitability of buildings: A new perspective on indoor accessibility

“…Research of inner-city mobility (Antipova, et al, 2011;Keeling, 2008), accessibility analysis and studies of optimal time-space distributions (Kwan & Weber, 2003;Neutens, et al, 2012;Neutens, et al, 2010;Versichele, et al, 2012) all reveal elements of the spatial distribution and interactions of people and businesses within the two-dimensional urban city.…”