Driving Change: Travel in the Twenty-First Century

Drawing on comparative detail from Europe, North America, and the rest of the world, Driving Change provides a nuanced overview of the UK's modern transport system and the role of business models and policy choices in its evolution. The common features of mobility and travel in developed economies are highlighted in order to provide a balanced appraisal of possible future developments. The book offers a detailed consideration of the potential of new technologies - electric propulsion, digital platforms and autonomous vehicles - to offer solutions to the intractable challenges that accompany high levels of car ownership, as well as their likely impact on business and transport policy. Driving Change is a rich analysis of the modern state of transportation and will be welcomed by students of transport studies and policy professionals tasked with developing infrastructure and the growth of the transportation industry.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I Transport Legacy 1. A system under stress 2. Twentieth-century travel Part II Twenty-first century technologies 3. Electric vehicles 4. Digital navigation 5. Digital platforms 6. Autonomous vehicles 7. Trains, planes, buses and roads 8. Twenty-first century travel

About the Author :
David Metz is Honorary Professor in the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London. He was formerly Chief Scientist at the UK Department for Transport. His books include Travel Fast or Smart? A Manifesto for an Intelligent Transport Policy (2016) and Peak Car: The Future of Travel (2014).

Review :
Economic, demographic and technological changes point to the need for our transport system to evolve substantially in future, raising questions of how best to achieve this given the legacy of costly past investments. In this book David Metz offers new insights into how the system as a whole needs to adapt, and wise advice about how to bring this about. Efficient, clean transportation is fundamental to a healthy economy and society; anybody with an interest in it ought to read Driving Change. This timely and excellent book draws out the lessons from important changes in travel behaviour that others appear not to have noticed. We have stopped travelling further and faster as we continue to use the same amount of time. So it is digital platforms and transport management that are the challenges of the future, rather than the traditional models of how to save time. David Metz’s new book is a refreshing antidote to the sometimes breathless speculation about the potential impacts – good and bad – of new transport technologies, such as driverless cars, Mobility as a Service and digital platforms. His conclusion – which may surprise some – is that while these new technologies may have benefits if appropriately deployed, they are unlikely to have the transformative impact of earlier innovations like the railway, the private car – or the wheel itself. This book would be an ideal introductory textbook both in style and breadth. It encourages an intellectual inclusiveness leading to a model of modest scepticism.