Transport Geography: Brief Notes on Transport Geography

“Transportation is a measure of the relations between areas and is therefore, an essential aspect of geography” (Ullman, 1954).

In our daily life everything appears to be on the move, and speed seems to be ever increasing. This almost universal observation implies that transportation of all kinds forms the warp and weft in modern society. Wagner (1960) has aptly pointed out the contribution that transport has been able to share in integrating social phenomenon and changes taking place everywhere.

He stated, “The routes along which men, materials, and messages move bind a society together. They make the reticule on which are strung the sites of work and rest; they are the paths along which flow the myriad streams of raw and half-made goods in process of production; they form the links between each local group of human and the thoughts and presence of its fellows”.

Transport is not only a basic human activity, but is also movement in space; therefore, the study of transport is of great importance to geographers. It is also an explanatory factor in the spatial patterns assumed by the human activities, which are basic to geography.

Transport and its Functions:

Transport involves two aspects:

(i) A vehicle or unit of conveyance and

(ii) A medium upon which to move.

The choice of medium determines the type and design of the vehicle. Across wild country, hills and valleys, rocks and swamps, the ‘vehicle’ can only be a domesticated animal or man himself. Transportation can be classified conveniently on the basis of power, route and vehicles.

Taking power into account, the following categories are significant:

(i) Man and animal power used as a force in transportation,

(ii) Mechanical power in the form of force driving automobiles, trains, ships, aeroplanes, etc., and

(iii) Physical power like wind or running water facili­tating movement of goods.

The classification on the basis of nature of routes includes:

(i) The land routes including path or track, road, rail, and pipe line,

(ii) Water routes – inland and sea, and

(iii) Air routes.

On the basis of vehicles or mode of transport, the categories are: man and animal, wheeled vehicle driven either by man or animal, automobile, railway, ship and aeroplane. Whatever may be the category, but the functions performed by transport are of great economic and social impor­tance and is an indicator of development. Transport is concerned with a movement of persons or goods for some particular purpose. The demand for transport is a derived demand. The factors involved in transport are demand, provision and assessment. All the three are interrelated and have had influence on each other. Figure 1.1 shows demand, provision and assessment and the associated factors.

The present-day transport system of any country or area cannot normally be explained by one factor alone. Explana­tions can be found, however, in a series of interrelated factors. Some of the more important factors are indicated in Figure 1.1, which shows how transport demand is influenced by economic and demographic circumstances, by patterns of land use and by trading conditions; how transport provision is constrained by political structures, inherited transport networks, environmental factors, available technology and finance; what affects transport usage and modal split; how the effects of transport are assessed at different scales and in different dimen­sions; and what influence transport has on land use, volume of activity, economic development and the environment.

Transport is used as a means to an end: a producer of consumer goods requires transport in order to move goods from his factory or depot to the wholesalers and retailers who sell his goods; it is also demanded for social contact or to get quickly and safely from home to work. In fact, transport creates utilities of place. As the economy develops the need for transport becomes more vital.

The four most important functions of transport are:

(i) Division of labour,

(ii) A real specialisation,

(iii) Extension of the market, and

(iv) Optimisation of production units.

Apart from facilitating the movement of goods, transport also helps in the development and extension of services. With the specialisation in services and/or production, the size of the catchment area becomes more extensive, which in turn requires more and more transport links. The social functions of transport are also important.

A major change in modern social life is the separation of work and residence as well as greater mobility. This has been made possible by transport development, enabling people to live in a better environment. Transport also allows people to travel for recreational purposes, to sporting fixtures, etc. Finally, transport has strategic importance. In living, the main function of transport is to close the spatial gap between producer and consumer.

Transport Geography:

Transportation stands as one of the four traditional compo­nents of economic geography: primary production, manufacturing, marketing and transportation. Earlier, the study of transportation has been done as an element of economy, but with the growth of specialisation in knowledge including geography, transport geography has emerged as a distinct field of study and many geographers have done consid­erable work on it during the last fifty years.

Geographers have developed interest in the study of transport for two main reasons:

(i) Transport is a significant human activity with a strong spatial component, and

(ii) It is an important factor influencing the spatial variation in many other social and economic activities.

Transport interests us as geographers, because it affects the total costs of production of the commodities entering into trade and through those costs their competitive ability. It must, therefore, have important effects upon location of industry and upon the general supply of commodities. Transport geography is referred as “the Cinderella of economic geography” and has now emerged as a subject in its own right. After all, transport is an indispensable feature of modern life and, because of its function and importance, has a profound impact upon our lives.

The earliest transport geogra­phers invariably studied a single mode of transport or were concerned with a description of a country’s or regional transport network. But afterwards much emphasis has been given to transport spatial system as a whole, to its structural analysis, accessibility, connectivity, commodity flow, implica­tions, impacts and policies, etc. The adoption of quantitative techniques has given a new dimension to the geographical study of transportation.

Ullman (1954: 311) has rightly observed that “transpor­tation is a measure of the relations between areas and is therefore an essential aspect of geography”. The economic relations between areas are reflected in the character of transpor­tation facilities and in the flow of traffic. He further stated: “Geography is concerned with all spatial connections and inter­actions, including communication and transportation. The study of transportation or circulation thus cuts across all fields of human geography.”

The approach of the transportation geographer underlines the need for seeing a real differentiation on the earth not only as a geometric design of overlapping patterns but also as design of things in motion. There is a great interest among geographers either in transport per se as a significant human activity, or indirectly through its influence upon the spatial distribution of other activities.

The study of the various aspects of transport geography has been done in order to establish the connections between areas and the nature of the spatial interchange. It is also necessary to find some way of measuring and mapping the flow of traffic and environmental conditions affecting growth and development. Transportation studies are also related closely to the concepts of geography as a whole and such study contribute to the formulation and evolution of geographic theory. Geographers have also given emphasis to study of specific current problems of transportation.

White and Senior (1983), in their book Transport Geography has stated that “geographers, by virtue of their training and experience, have an important contribution to make to the development and methodology of transport studies”. They have described three major aspects of transport geography: first, it deals with the interaction between the environmental factors and between the environmental factors and human activities by adopting a ‘systems approach’; second, the study of systems in terms of spatial variables-, and third, the geographical approach to create an awareness of technological development as an input factor to transport systems.

With the shift of emphasis over time on the direction of research in transport geography some issues have become less significant and others have emerged. In earlier studies, emphasis was upon describing and explaining the relationships between transport routes and systems and the physical form of the areas they traversed. On the other hand, the historical approach explores the initiation, growth and expansion of specific systems.

The ‘quantitative revolution’ of the 1960s provided transport geographers with valuable new methods and techniques to investigate networks and to describe their form and levels of complexity with much greater precision. The more recent approach in transport geography is the behav­ioural approach for the study of demand-supply relationships, and particularly in the complex process of the decision-making, which precedes personal trip generation.

Transport network is an integral part of the landscape. There are elements in it, just as are hills and valleys, fields and forests, settlements and factories. Their shape, location and relationship to the land surface are not haphazard but meaningful. They are the product of the numerous circum­stances – physical, economic and social – therefore their geographical analysis not only explains the present pattern and problems but also helps in their planning.

Transport geography, till 1960s, was treated in a most general and casual manner but now has developed into an important and distinct field of study which deals with spatial analysis of transport network and objective analysis, as well as gives scientific expla­nation of the various facets of the transport as a part of spatial system.

Why is transport geography important?

There are two main reasons.

First, transport industries, facilities, infrastructures and networks occupy substantial areas of geographical space, constitute complex spatial systems and provide substantial numbers of widely spread jobs.

Second, geography is concerned with interrelationships between phenomena in a spatial setting and with the explanation of spatial patterns; and transport is frequently one of the most potent explanatory factors.

Transport is a measure of the interactions between areas; it also enables a division of labour to occur. Spatial differentiation, wider market areas and economies of scale in production are partly a product of transport availability and use; and the demand for transport, in turn, is partly a product of these factors (Gauthier, 1970; Hay, 1973; Button and Gllingwater, 1983).

“Location remains all important as technological innova­tions in transport and telecommunications continue to collapse space differentially” (Knowles, 1993: 5). Nodal ‘situations’ change and the spatial qualities of centrality and intermediary enhance the importance and traffic levels of strategically located hubs within transport systems (Fleming and Hayuth, 1994).

Transport geography is thus concerned with the expla­nation, from a spatial perspective, of the socio-economic, industrial and settlement frameworks within which transport networks develop and transport systems operate. The subject therefore centres upon dynamic interrelationships within transport itself and in transport-related contexts.

A substantial and growing literature and an increasing interdisciplinary involvement on the part of transport geographers have lead to an enhanced awareness of the importance of the spatial dimension in transport studies, and of the contributions transport geographers are making, individually and collectively, to the further understanding and eventual solution of contemporary transport problems. The holistic approach of geographers is particularly valuable in land use and transport planning, in the design of transport systems and in addressing environmental problems.

This book offers a wealth of examples of issues addressed by transport geographers and illus­trates in detail some of the specific transport problems – environmental, urban and rural, for example – as well as many policy-orientated debates in the context of which a geographical perspective is not only illuminating but essential if realistic solutions are to be found. Transport studies are multidisciplinary, so is the transport geography, which draws some of its materials from related subjects and focuses upon the analysis of interrelationships, especially those expressed in spatial dimensions.

Review of Selected Works in Geography of Transportation:

Transport geography, now, has emerged as a distinct branch of economic geography. A survey of research in transport geography reveals that during the last six decades, lot of work has been done on variety of themes by social scientists, including geographers.

Transportation was treated formerly, only as a fundamental factor influencing the pattern of areal differentiation and character of places operating through various economic and human activities. But, after 1950s, it is regarded as a geographical phenomenon more than an economic factor, reflecting the complexities of economic inter­dependence and demanding topological and objective analysis and spatial structural formulation.

With the introduction of the quantitative techniques in geography a new opening for trans­portation studies have been created. For example, the analysis of interaction matrices, linear programming models for movement of commodities or gravity and entropy models fall in this category.

Now, the literature available on transport geography is a vast one. Apart from regional research on transport, several general studies have been published, which provide a theoretical base for research works.

A few important books available for reference are as follows:

1. O’Dell, A.C. and Richards, P.S. (1956), Railways and Geography, Hutchinson.

2. Appleton, J.H. (1962), the Geography of Communications in Great Britain, Oxford University Press.

3. Buchanan, C. (1963), Traffic in Towns, Penguin.

4. Sealy, K.R. (1968), the Geography of Air Transport, Hutch­inson.

5. Haggett, P. and Charley, R.J. (1969), Network Analysis in Geography, Arnold.

6. Couper, A.D. (1972), the Geography of Sea Transport, Hutchinson.

7. Taaffe, E.J. and Gauthier, H.L. (1973), Geography of Trans­portation, Prentice Hall.

8. Eliot Hurst, M.E. (ed.) (1974), Transportation Geography: Comments and Readings, McGraw Hill.

9. Robinson, H. and Bamford, C.G. (1978), Geography of Transport, Macdonald and Evans.

10. White, H.P. and Senior, M.L. (1983), Transport Geography, Longman.

11. Hoyle B.S. and Knowles, R. (eds.) (1992), Modern Transport Geography, Belhaven.

A systematic approach to the study of transportation in the context of spatial interaction was developed by Ullman (1954, 1956, 1957, 1967, 1970, and 1973).

The fundamental concept developed by him is known as ‘Ullman’s Principles’ or ‘Ullman’s Traid’, Ullman (1954, 1957, and 1973) put forward three main reasons of the interactions involving transportation:

(i) Complementarity,

(ii) Intervening opportunity, and

(iii) Transferability.

In fact, Ullamn was the scholar who has put forward the “Transportation Geography” as a distinct field of study in a research paper published in American Geography: Inventory and Prospects (1954). Among other American geographers, W.H Wallace (1958), Edward, Richard, Morril and Gould (1963), Garrison (1953), Berry (1959), J.W. Alexander (1944), Brown and Dahalberg (1958), PE James (1925), H. Mayer (1954) are notable, because their writing have given a base for the geography of transportation.

By the applications of gravity and potential notions R.H.T. Smith has attempted to measure the significance of complementarity in spatial interchange in his article, “Toward a measure of complementarity”. The application of topological concepts and graph theoretical techniques to the analysis of transportation networks has also been attempted in many recent studies. The indices thus developed to measure different facets of network structure have been applied both for cross-sectional as well as time series analysis. Kansky (1963) argues that the structure of transportation network of any area cannot be studied in isolation from geographic characteristics.

Kansky has under­taken an extensive empirical analysis of transport network structures and has suggested a number of measures for analysing complex transport network structures. Studies of this type include works by Garrison, Berry and Others (1959), Ramchandran (1973), etc. Haggett (1965) has identified various levels of nodes and a structural hierarchy on the basis of inter­action attributes.

In UK and Germany transportation studies are of tradi­tional type, which tend to be disruptive and discursive. The books referred earlier by O’Dell (1956), Sealy (1968) and Buchanan (1963) are notable contribution by British geogra­phers during early phase of the development of transport geography. In Germany, important studies related to the analysis of transport are contained in Raum and Verkehr Series.

In the first volume of the series, W. Linden examines the role of railroads in the economic development of Germany and intro­duces the problems of railroad competition followed by a discussion concerning an articulated transport system. While Vol. II of Raum and Verkehr Series contains four articles on the movement of goods in German economy, Vol. Ill contains five essays concerned with divergent aspects of economy – circulation – transportation relationship. A gist of all these studies is presented by B.J.L. Berry (1959).

In Sweden, Godlund (1956) has made a significant contri­bution in formulating a general principle of transportation development. He also develops a sequence of growth process for the bus routes in his article, “Bus Service in Sweden”. In USSR, studies in transportation are entirely planning oriented.

They have developed methods for analysing the transport patterns, traffic flow and future transport requirements. However, the results of their researches are available only in Russian language. Theoretical as well as empirical contribu­tions by Probst (1962), Alampiew (1959), Bedenkova (1964) and Kistarov (1965) relate to the flow of commodities and formation of economic regions in Soviet Russia.

The spatial interconnections within the Japanese economy have been identified by Mitsuhanshi (1970). He sued factor analysis technique to the movement of thirty-two commod­ities. Britton (1977) has used origin destination data on road freight flows at the city and regional level for England and Wales as a means of identifying regions linked in dominant chains and hierarchical pattern. The structural changes of economic regions in Poland have been investigated by Chojnicki and Czyz (1973) through factor analysis study of railway commodity flow data for the period 1958-66.

Currie (1959) presents a detailed economic survey with specific reference to the role of transportation in the Canadian economy and highway freight transport. Berry (1966) in his study entitled, “Essays on Commodity Flows and the spatial structure of the Indian Economy” has done a classic work. In this work he has not only examined the commodity flows but also discussed the relationship between commodity flows and regional economic structure as well as the pattern of spatial interrelationship.

Transport always plays a major role in economic devel­opment and social transformation; therefore, studies have been done to explain relationship between transport and devel­opment as well as of policy and planning. P.O. Muller (1976) has given special emphasis on “Social Transportation Geography” in Transport and Development and an edited volume by Hoyle (1973) is a valuable contribution.

Another edited volume entitled, Transport and Economic Development in the New Central and Eastern Europe by D. Hall (1993) explains in details the various facets of transport and economic devel­opment. Modern Transport Geography edited by Hoyle and Knowles (1998) deals with geographical aspects related with transport, development, traffic flow, environmental impact and policymaking, etc.

Several studies have been done on urban transport system and its problems. Among them Chapman (1954), Patton (1956), Wallace (1958), Smith (1963), Golledge (1963), Whitelegg (1985), Hanson (1986), Turton (1992) are notable. The Geography of Urban Transportation, an edited volume by S. Banson (1986), is a significant contribution. Geographers have also studied the policy and planning aspects of transportation. The contribution made by Whitelegg (1993), C.K. Leung (1980), Hoyle (1974), Turton (1992), Hall (1993) is notable. Rodney Tolly and Brain Turton (1995) have published a book titled, Transport Systems, Policy and Planning: A Geographical Analysis. The book contains the basic framework, spatial systems, implications, impacts and policies. In fact, transpor­tation geography now has emerged as a developed branch of geography not only in developed countries but also in India.

In India, geographical studies of transportation began rather late, that too in the form of descriptive research articles related with specific regions. But after 1960, regular research works have been started and significant works have also been done in various University Geography Departments, specially at BHU, Varanasi, Udaipur, Rajasthan (Jaipur), Gorakhpur, Dharwar, JNU, etc.

Among earlier works, research articles of N. Subrahmanyan (1930), N. Ghosh (1951), L.V. Kulkarni (1955), S. A. Majid (1950) are available for reference. Guha (1955) presented his valuable study of traffic flow in greater Calcutta area. Sinhas’ (1957) study of the transport problems of Orissa indicated the inadequate development of road transport in that State. An important study was made by W.H. Wake, “The Casuals Role of Transportation Improvements in Agricultural Changes in Madhya Pradesh” (1962).

The Ph. D. research works of J. Singh (1964) on “Transport Geography of South Bihar” and R.B. Singh’s (1966), “Transport Geography of Uttar Pradesh” (both published) deal with road, rail transport pattern and their various facets. H.M. Saxena (1970) has completed Ph. D. thesis on “Transport and Market Centres of Hadoati Plateau” (published in 1975) which deals with transport network pattern and their relationship with market centres of the south-eastern Rajasthan. H. Ramchandran (1977) has studied the “Transportation and Urban Attributes in the Coimbatore Region” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, CSRD, JNU).

Similarly, N. Ramchandran (1979) has also done his research work on “Commodity Flows and the Regional Organisation of the Indian Economy”. In the Depart­ments of Geography of the University of Banaras, Gorakhpur, Udaipur, Jaipur (Rajasthan), Dharwad, JNU, New Delhi, etc., considerable research works have been done.

A.B. Mukerji’s (1973) paper on “Road Transportation Network Structure and Levels of Urbanization in Rajasthan” is a good analysis of network and its impact on urbanisation. Saxena (1980) has discussed the “Road Transport Connectivity Pattern and Economic Development in Rajasthan”. Sunil Munshi (1975, 1980) has examined the transportation and railway network in Eastern India under the British Raj. The work of Moonis Raza and Y. Aggarwal on various aspects of the commodity flow in India is very significant and published in the form of a book entitled, Transport Geography of India.

The above review of the literature on transport geography simply highlights the most important works. Several other research works have also been done both by foreign and Indian geographers, which indicates that transport geography now has become not only a distinct branch of economic geography but because of its applied nature, it is very useful for integrated spatial planning.