THE GEOGRAPHY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

Transportation and The Spatial Structure

An 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. The current transport systems are thus the outcome of a long evolution marked by period of rapid changes where a new transport technology was adopted. Such radical shifts are however not common with rail, the internal combustion engine and the jet engine being the most salient examples. Future transportation systems will likely be shaped by the same forces than in the past but it remains to be seen which technologies will prevail.

Transportation systems are composed of a complex set of relationships between the demand, the locations they service and the networks that support movements. Such conditions are closely related to the development of transportation networks, both in capacity and in spatial extent. This chapter consequently investigates the relationships between transportation and its related spatial structure.

Concepts

Methods

Applications

Bibliography

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The Geography of Transport Systems

SECOND EDITION
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack (2009), New York: Routledge, 352 pages. ISBN 978-0-415-48324-7