The Geography of Transport Systems
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois
and Brian Slack
Routledge
London and New York
Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities, including commuting, manufacturing or supplying energy. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is the main purpose of this valuable and accessible book.
The Geography of Transport Systems, concerned with movements of freight, people and information, tries to link spatial constraints and attributes with the origin, the
destination, the extent, the nature and the purpose of movements. It is divided into nine chapters, each covering a specifi c conceptual dimension, including:
• Networks
• Modes and terminals
• International transportation
• Urban transportation
• Environmental impacts
Each chapter also covers methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and geographic information systems for transportation.
This student-friendly book provides a comprehensive introduction to the fi eld, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods and areas of application. It is highly illustrated with over 100 fi gures and tables and includes an extensive glossary.
Jean-Paul Rodrigue is an Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Economics and Geography at Hofstra University, USA.
Claude Comtois is Professor of Geography at the University of Montreal, Canada.
Brian Slack is Professor of Geography at Concordia University, Canada.
Contents
Preface viii
Chapter 1 Transportation and geography 1
Chapter 2 Transportation systems and networks 38
Chapter 3 Economic and spatial structure of transport systems 74
Chapter 4 Transportation modes 101
Chapter 5 Transport terminals 126
Chapter 6 International and regional transportation 144
Chapter 7 Urban transportation 171
Chapter 8 Transport and environment 204
Chapter 9 Transport planning and policy 227
Chapter 10 Conclusion: Issues and challenges in transport geography 246
Glossary 252
Index 276
Transportation and
geography
Movements of people, goods and information have always been fundamental components
of human societies. Contemporary economic processes have been accompanied by a
signifi cant increase in mobility and higher levels of accessibility. Although this trend
can be traced back to the industrial revolution, it signifi cantly accelerated in the second
half of the twentieth century as trade was liberalized, economic blocs emerged and
the comparative advantages of global labor and resources were used more effi ciently.
However, these conditions are interdependent with the capacity to manage, support and
expand movements of passengers and freight as well as their underlying information
fl ows. Societies have become increasingly dependent on their transport systems to
support a wide variety of activities ranging, among others, from commuting, supplying
energy needs, to distributing parts between factories. Developing transport systems has
been a continuous challenge to satisfy mobility needs, to support economic development
and to participate in the global economy. The goal of this introductory chapter is to
provide a defi nition of the nature, role and function of transport geography and where
the discipline stands in regard to other disciplines. It also underlines the importance of
specifi c dimensions such as nodes, locations, networks and interactions. A historical
perspective on the evolution of transport systems underlines the consequences of
technical innovations and how improvements in transportation were interdependent
with contemporary economic and social changes.
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