Lessons from History? History in transport studies: a contribution to COST 340[1] Round Table. COST340, Final Conference, Paris
June 13th-15th, 2005
Margaret Grieco, Professor of Transport and Society, Transport Research Institute, Napier University and Visiting Full Professor, Institute for African Development, Cornell University.
Email: m.grieco@napier.ac.uk mg294@cornell.edu
1. Introduction: transport culture, a useful historical focus for transport studies.
Until recently, ‘transport’ and ‘culture’ were rarely discussed together[2]. ‘Transport studies’ has largely focused on the history of the infrastructural patternings of transport: recording the history of machines, of engines and of the physical networks which underlay their operation has been the norm. Discussions of the social in transport history have more frequently focused on the economic domain (Mom, 2001) – studies of the links between transport investment and economic development have found their place in business history and economic history but the greater part of the relationship between transport and social life is neglected. What remains missing is the understanding of the importance of transport in the organisation of everyday life and its role in cultural and political processes[3]: furthermore, different societies and different epochs have different ‘transport cultures’ if we think of ‘transport culture’ as the social rules around mobility and the constraint of mobility. And our present knowledge of the social rules around mobility and the constraint of mobility, and the history of such rules, is scant. The evidence is at best fragmented, where it has been collected it has all too often been lost subsequently or destroyed and where it could be collected, the lack of history of collection works against its present collection.
Yet the discussion of ‘transport culture’ is important for European policy purposes. Understanding the interactions between transport, mobility and social organisation and the variations in this relationship in the different regions of Europe is important for the overall planning of European transport[4]. The integration of many European cities, regions and states is the integration of many different European transport cultures[5] and it is time to identify any preserved evidence, collect new evidence and develop a planning environment which recognises and either accommodates for or adjusts to the variations which such evidence requires. Developing appropriate inter-modal networks for Europe necessitates more accurate mappings of user patterns and mobility desires (Mom, 2001), better understandings of mobility culture and a more abundant toolkit of auditing techniques with which equity issues can be better addressed. Strong civic participation practices in the planning of transport have the potential to generate better auditing tools and better records of transport history and transport culture than those we have inherited: a first lesson must surely be to improve upon user involvement and the record-keeping of that involvement.
2. The loss of evidence, the loss of service: past transport intermodalities in Europe.
In exploring a lost history, the history of the ‘Scots herring girls’ (an annual labour migration of female fish processing workers which followed the shoals of herring and the fishing fleets accompanying them around the British coast line http://www.oocities.org/transport_and_society/routine.html ), I became aware of the levels of intermodal transport that were a feature of this industry. Rail lines to harbours and the fast despatch of fish, both processed and unprocessed, was a norm for the industry.
Through the station doorway: Whitby photographed
by Frank Sutcliffe
The geography of the fishing and its processing made for busy traffic around Britain’s coast line as labour was delivered in large numbers to remote locations and produce transported out to the system’s heartland. Coastal transport patterns around Scotland were very different to those of today and the normality of water based journeys has all but disappeared.
Gone too are the histories of how ordinary people organised their journeys to participate in the great herring industry. We can gain glimpses through photographs and film of the workplace and the proximity of rail to boat but the recording of the organisation of the journeys to work and their scale has largely been lost.
Fishworker special train: Yarmouth to Peterhead.
Presently many of the locations that either provided herring girls to this workforce or were places where fish were landed and processed are losing population. Their transport facilities are very often poor: their remoteness in many ways greater now than that it was a century ago. Their intermodal heyday has passed: the economic base of what was a highly intermodal transport system has now gone. However, issues of population maintenance in Europe’s remote regions remain and need to be addressed and intermodal transport systems must form part of the solution. Using new information technologies to enable citizens in remote locations to organise a journey through car pooling or volunteer vehicle fleets to the point of public transport interchange or providing subsidies for air fares to enable the remote to connect with main stream services and opportunities provide paths towards equitable intermodal transport systems. Standardisation of facilities which simply privileges the mainstream and neglects the needs of the remote amounts to insufficient modalities.
The lesson of history is that transport systems develop to accommodate specific economic bases and the decline of an economic base can produce a very real decline in available transport. A social transport policy for Europe must investigate ways of repairing the damage of history: in the case of the United Kingdom, the demise of local railway services delivered a fundamental blow to intermodal transport systems across a number of regions. The legacy is that issues of rural transport equity are now much in evidence in the policy discussion.
3. Preserving and reconnecting patterns of evidence.
The decay, destruction and disruption of past patterns of transport represents the decay, destruction and disruption of past social patterns of activity. Collecting the evidence on the interaction between transport and social activity has at best been poorly accomplished. Migration paths between different parts of Europe, and the organisation of these migrant journeys, provide a rich ground for investigation. Within the United Kingdom, in the past, the labour migration between Glasgow and Corby generated distinctive transport arrangements as evidenced by direct coach services between the two locations: identifying the journeys which are made and making them easier or enabling journeys which are presently difficult to make but have a social use is an appropriate perspective in developing European intermodal passenger policies. Providing feedback facilities through new information systems by which such information can be captured is a low cost and highly useful planning tool. In this way, transport can play its part as a tool within the social cohesion policy of Europe.
In terms of immediate projects, the river traffic on the Danube stands out as a context in which there has been substantial disruption of and recent damage to intermodality. The centrality of the river and its infrastructural importance, and the centrality of the bridges which crossed it, made it a ready target in a period of war. The experience of the Danube is a reminder that large scale and centrality in transport systems can represent strategic vulnerabilities.
The lowest bridge on the Danube, Novisad: after the Kosovo conflict @ http://home.hiwaay.net/~craigg/g4c/bojanb.htm
In terms of the lessons of history, the experience of the Danube raises the question about identifying alternative ways of controlling renegade states without the destruction of their infrastructure. A Danube project designed to provide both cultural repair and infrastructural repair is a lesson on history that could reasonably be developed. Mounting exhibitions of visual records of the bridges of Novisad before their destruction has a cultural importance (http://www.prevodi-vertalingen.com/bridgesformostovi/novisad/novisad.html ): repairing bridges to enable traffic patterns to redevelop can not be the whole of the story. Measuring the impact of the infrastructural damage to the Danube in terms of its consequences for everyday life in the locality must be another part.
4. New histories, new records and the public display of policy evidence.
Europe has real opportunities for shaping new histories and one of these opportunities lies in the availability of new information communication technologies as a low cost, highly distributed means of connection to and communication with the public. New ICTs can enable public participation in planning: it permits the public display of policy evidence, it can enable feedback from localities, from regions and from national publics on steps to be adopted and permit a movement away from over simple, top down, overly standardised approaches. The new information communication technologies can assist in enabling greater customisation of transport systems to meet local needs. It is important that transport technology is not simply harnessed to privilege only the business sector, or the business heartland but that it also meets the social goals and needs of all areas of Europe. There is more room for play than receives space in the policy discussion: demand responsive transport schemes which service local transport needs should be considered within the intermodal network frameworks. Where new ICTs are used in the operation of such schemes, new records are automatically created. Transparency around transport issues becomes increasingly less expensive to deliver: such transparency is likely to create changes in the politics of transport in Europe. History provides us with an understanding of winners and losers in economic and political change: in modern history, equity is increasingly easy to measure. Operational policies for addressing inequity lag behind: Europe’s social cohesion agenda leaves it with no choice but to address issues of transport equity, however, it has yet to mainstream such understandings into the larger and highly endowed transport investment policies.
5. Conclusion:
In thinking about Intermodal Transport and the lessons from history, it is clear to me that we have not collected the evidence on the impact of transport on the organisation of everyday life very well. And where such evidence is to be had buried in other sources, we have not interrogated those sources well to put together a picture of this relationship. The call to start thinking in terms of “mobility culture” put together by Mom (2001), amongst others, sensitises us to this need for a new approach. It is time to start collecting the fragments and shaping new frameworks that allow us to recognise and access evidence. Whether we start with identifying the shrinking of distance in Switzerland with its excellent public transport system, or look to the expanding of distance in Britain’s sink housing estates and remote communities, or focus on the patterns of the bargemen of Auvergne, or engage with the tragedy of the destruction of the bridges of Novisad and its impact on everyday life, it is time to get more detailed and more knowledgeable about the social patterns of transport. It will improve our planning, improve our services and improve our culture. Intermodal networks and the recognition of the social interconnections which accompany them must both be the business of an integrating Europe. The goal is:
To ensure all European citizens have access to quality transport systems capable of meeting their needs, the European Commission has advocated intermodal transport solutions in its White Paper “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide”. Intermodal transport networks should allow for seamless intermodal passenger transportation to provide attractive alternatives to ‘car-only’ travel. In this respect intermodal travel chains may comprise all transport modes including walking, public transport, cycling and car use. An efficient organisation of intermodal travel would reduce the reliance on the private car and allow for the use of more environmentally friendly modes to the benefit of all European citizens and the environment. http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/intermodality/passenger/index_en.htm:
References and resources:
dr.ing. Gijs Mom Networks, Systems and the European Automobile: A Plea for a Mobility History Programme. Review essay for the first AMES Workshop, Scenario 1: European Infrasystem Torino, 2 - 4 November 2001 @
http://www.histech.nl/tensphase2/Publications/Working/MomNs.rtf
Resource: Transport/ culture interfaces: an European policy discussion.
http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc01/EDOC9095.htm
Resource: Intermodal transport: passenger level. http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/intermodality/passenger/index_en.htm:
‘European transport finds itself in a difficult situation. On the one hand, transport systems must respond to the multiple mobility requests of European citizens so as to provide the freedom to travel necessary for social and economical development. On the other hand, transport is the major consumer of non-renewable, imported fossil fuels (31 % of total energy supply) and is negatively affecting citizens health, the economy and causes climate change. The external costs of surface passenger transport total approximately 317 billion EUR (INFRAS/IWW, 2004; for EU15) per year. The negative external effects of private car travel (83 % of all motorised passenger-kms) are, on average, 2.5 times higher than those of bus and rail services.
To ensure all European citizens have access to quality transport systems capable of meeting their needs, the European Commission has advocated intermodal transport solutions in its White Paper “European transport policy for 2010: time to decide”. Intermodal transport networks should allow for seamless intermodal passenger transportation to provide attractive alternatives to ‘car-only’ travel. In this respect intermodal travel chains may comprise all transport modes including walking, public transport, cycling and car use. An efficient organisation of intermodal travel would reduce the reliance on the private car and allow for the use of more environmentally friendly modes to the benefit of all European citizens and the environment.
Today intermodal travellers face a fragmented and diverse market. The multitude of ticketing schemes and terms and conditions for booking and using of services are significant barriers to intermodal travel. A lack of standardisation impedes efficient service delivery and makes orientation in stations and vehicles difficult. Services and organisational structures are only co-ordinated at local or regional level. Co-ordination of intermodal issues at national level is scarce and almost missing at European level. This significantly reduces the attractiveness of intermodal long-distance and international travel especially when compared to private car travel.’