University of California Transportation Center

I critique the innovation processes that yield transportation’s technologies, and to aid my analysis I look back to take advantage of the accumulation of experiences and insights marked by the millennium.

I identify supply, transport, and user systems. Transport systems move things, supply systems provide fuel, pavements, and other inputs to transport activities, and user systems combine transport with other activities for socially useful purposes. The discussion then shifts from structure to behavior, and a short review of the emergence of today’s systems reminds us that technological advances may improve the provision of old services, offer new ways of doing old things, or induce qualitative changes that enable doing new things.

With these structural and behavioral matters in mind, I challenge the reader to judge the present situation and the future.