Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice

The only practically-oriented journal dealing with the major issues in a field of international concern, the Journal of World Transport Policy and Practice was founded in 1995 in an attempt to provide scholars, researchers, policy makers and ordinary smart people concerned with the marked unsustainability of our current transport arrangements with a high-quality, independent medium for the presentation of original and creative ideas in world transport. The Journal is a long term collaborative venture led by Eco-Logica Ltd. and the New Mobility Agenda, founded by Professor John Whitelegg and supported by an Editorial Board and a small production team.

World Transport has a philosophy based on the equal importance of academic rigor and a strong commitment to ideas, policies, and practical initiatives that will bring about a reduction in global dependency on the car, the lorry and aircraft. Experts in transport, the environment, economics and ecology contribute probing papers dealing in an informed and even-handed manner with key issues in transport, case studies and reports of trials, and assesses the difficulties of balancing economic and ecological considerations as we strive to develop a better transport system in all respects. The Journal appears four time a year.

The Journal and its founders and collaborators share a life-long commitment to sustainable transport which embraces the urgent need to cut global emissions of carbon dioxide, to reduce the amount of new infrastructure of all kinds and to highlight the importance of future generations, the poor, those who live in degraded environments and those deprived of human rights by a planning system that puts a higher importance on economic objectives than on the environment and social justice.

World Transport embraces a different approach to science and through science to publishing. This view is based on the honest evaluation of the track record of transport planning, engineering and economics. These interrelated disciplines have embraced a quantitative, elitist and mechanistic view of society, space and infrastructure and have eliminated people from the analysis.

The test of time

The Journal of World Transport Policy & Practice first hit the street with Vol. 1, No. 1 in 1995, with a first collection of articles vigorously contesting mainstream thinking in the sector It included “The well travelled yoghurt pot” by Stefanie Böge, “The end of the urban freeway” by Peter Newman, “Urban transport policy paradoxes in Australia” by Paul Mees, “How Amsterdam plans to reduce car traffic” by Leo Lemmers, “New roads generate new traffic” by Rudolf H.H. Pfleiderer and Martin Dieterich, “Violence and the car” by Helmut Holzapfel, and “Living without a car” by Michael Glotz-Richter. (To see how they stand the test of time, happily all you have to do is click here.)

That first edition, now fourteen long years ago, opened with an editorial by our founding editor John Whitelegg in which he set the stage for the future by reminding us that:

“Many of the issues raised within the transport debate do not fit into the narrow and stultifying disciplinary compartments that characterize science and Society in the developed world. This journal is topic and issue-based and will encourage as many contributions as possible from as many perspectives as possible. Many of the issues raised will be controversial and this journal will publicize material from all sides of the debate. There is a solution to our global environment and local environmental problems, and there is such a thing as a sustainable city sustainable region and a sustainable community. Solutions are more likely to emerge from vigorous debate, dissent and replies than they are from set pieces on transport economics, transport geography, transport engineering or traffic science.”

That was true back in 1995 and is still right in the mainstream of Journal policy today. It is indeed what we are all about.

Over these years many of our active worldwide network of friends and colleagues working with these issues, including through various forms of association with the New Mobility Agenda, have found ourselves involved in many ways with the Journal. If you check through the list of editions, articles and authors that you appear just your left you will find many familiar names and important topics.

It has been an exciting and encouraging association. And over this time the Journal and its advocates have gradually moved from being very much a voice in the wilderness and now are stepping right into the critical mainstream of policy, practice and thinking in the sector. Which is exactly where we belong.

This site provides a handy entry into the Journal and its contents, as well as showing how it interacts with the New Mobility programs. And you will also see here how directly to click to the Journal’s own site which is now open for business here.

Eric Britton,
Founding partner and member of the Editorial Advisory Board.