Transport geography, climate change and space: opportunity for new thinking

Abstract

This paper reflects on how Transport Geography has examined the relationships between climate change, transport and space. It identifies four tendencies in engagements so faruneven attention; separation between climate change mitigation and adaptation; continuity in theory, method and research praxis; and over-reliance on 'Western' thinking and worldviews. It develops an agenda for further research that emphasises the importance of considering all modes and forms of transport, moving beyond the mitigation and adaptation distinction, and the socio-political nature of the relationships between climate change, transport and space. It also argues that research praxis has to be revised if those relationships are to be understood adequately, suggesting that critical reflexivity on concepts is a useful step in this direction. The paper then introduces and illustrates an approach to the (re)invention of concepts about the relationships between transport, climate change and space. It concludes by urging transport geographers to work with concepts co-produced with a much wider range of constituencies than usually considered and to develop new methods for tracking the events created by new concepts.

COVID-19 lockdown and reduction of traffic accidents in Tarragona province, Spain

“…One such example concerns air quality; this has improved due to a reduction in the pollutants discharged into the atmosphere as a result of socio-economic activity and the use of motor vehicles ( Aloi et al, 2020 ; Anjum, 2020 ; Arora et al, 2020 ; Brodeur et al, 2020 ). Mobility has positive social and economic impacts, but it can also produce environmental problems, such as noise, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, all of which adversely affect human health ( Carrier et al, 2016 ; Chapman, 2007 ; Héritier et al, 2017 ; Mueller et al, 2017 ; Schwanen, 2019 ). Cleaner air resulting from traffic restrictions introduced in response to COVID-19 has had positive implications for human health ( Isalfan, 2020 ; Nelson, 2020 ).…”

Shifting perspectives: A comparison of travel-time-based and carbon-based accessibility landscapes

“…In contrast, emissions are not necessarily a major determinant of individual travel decisions, but represent a normative, politically defined constraint to travel activities. The plea for reinventing seemingly invariable concepts, thus enabling new rather than habitual ways of thinking in the context of climate change (Schwanen, 2019), might as well be transferred to the accessibility concept. In this paper, we propose an alternative conceptualization of accessibility, dominated by an environmental perspective instead of a user perspective.…”

Impact of Weather Conditions on Travel Demand – The Most Common Research Methods and Applied Models

“…Authors believe that research in this area will certainly contribute to climate adaptation within the existing strategies and procedures as part of contemporary ideas about climate adaptation as business as usual [81,82]. Future analysis in this research area will rely on collecting detailed data that will indicate reactions to changes in weather conditions throughout the day that often occur in short time intervals.…”