Richard Gilbert (6)

Very unusually, I've read a book of some relevance to my PhD. ‘Transport Revolutions’ comes from a transport policy and practise rather than theoretical perspective, making it more readable than much academic work on this subject. The authors advance the thesis that peak oil is coming - the book was published in 2008 and they estimate 2012 as the date of peak - and a revolution in transport is needed to address this.

Personally, although I am convinced by the argument that peak oil is show more quite immanent, the challenge of climate change seems to me more critical. The world still has more fossil fuel reserves, including oil, than it can possibly burn without resulting in catastrophic climate change. This is not a criticism of the book per se, as the authors clearly delineate their scope. ‘Transport Revolutions’ focuses on the period to 2025 and considers the oil consumption trajectory of transport, rather than the emissions trajectory. Although the two correlate, they should by no means be treated as interchangeable. If oil was supplanted as the leading transport fuel by coal-generated electricity, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions trajectory would take a disastrous upward turn. (And it is quite disastrous enough as it is.) The authors do note this, but do not in my view give quite enough credence to the interdependencies between climate change policy and tackling oil dependence. This is perhaps a point about the short term vs the long term - the authors treat peak oil as requiring action in the short term problem whereas climate change action can be longer term. Recent scientific findings regarding melting permafrost and resulting methane releases suggest that climate change mitigation is of overwhelming concern in the short, medium, and long term.

Quibbling aside, there is a lot of useful material in this book. The concept of revolutionary change in transport is very helpful, as a counterbalance to the domination of economics and engineering in transport policy. Both disciplines presuppose incremental change - engineering in terms of infrastructure enhancements, economics in terms of price changes, and both in terms of gradual technological change. Neither tends to consider the political, cultural, and social elements of transport as anything but an afterthought. The rise of mobility as a sub-discipline (see [b:Mobilities|4260885|Mobilities|John Urry|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388808082s/4260885.jpg|4308347] by John Urry) is something of a reaction against this. Although ‘Transport Revolutions’ does not explicitly situate itself within the mobility field, it takes a refreshingly strategic view of transport and recounts how major historical shifts have been led by the public sector. There is also a chapter that attempts to review work on the adverse impacts of transport. This is a heroic endeavour which inevitably couldn’t cover everything. The main omission seems to be literature from epidemiology on the health effects of car dependence. On the other hand, the inclusion of freight transport as well as personal transport throughout the book was a definite advantage, as it is often ignored or forgotten. I’ve been guilty of this myself.

The book concludes with a proposal to launch a new transport revolution, tailored to America and China. As the authors readily admit, this is much more substantive for America. I found the suggestions regarding international co-operation and rail investment interesting and well thought-out. On the other hand, the matter of car ownership did not seem to be adequately addressed. I was delighted to find on pages 82-86 bald acknowledgement that when cars are owned they are used thus, ‘it follows that limiting car ownership would be an effective factor in limited car use. However, most strategies for limiting car use do not address ownership.’ It is vanishingly rare to see this acknowledged in transport policy literature and it raised my hopes of further discussion on how car ownership might be subject to policy. Sadly, the point was not mentioned again. (As far as I can tell, car ownership control is rarely mentioned as it is antithetical to economic and engineering perspectives on transport policy, as well as politically taboo everywhere except Singapore.)

Overall the book gets four stars as it is useful and original in its approach. The concept of an electric tram/streetcar renaissance is an appealing one, although I’m a little dubious about the cheerleading for unproven PRT (Personal Rapid Transport). The scope of the book is largely limited to policy proscriptions for peak oil, so although climate change policy researchers will find parts to be transferable, it does not accord with the state of climate science in 2013. show less

Excellent analysis of the reason why our present, oil-dependent transport system cannot be sustained - due to its impact on the climate, but even more urgently, due to the impending peak and subsequent decline in world oil supplies. Many books in this area do a great job of outlining the problems without proposing possible solutions, but "Transport Revolutions" makes a detailed set of proposals, focusing heavily on the increased use of electricity in land transport. A great strength of the show more book is the extensive referencing, which makes it a very valuable resource when writing and presenting in these areas. A weakness is that the book doesn't address what might happen if its proposals don't work - in other words, there is no "Plan B", no consideration of a more decentralised, localised response to the end of the cheap energy era. show less