Transport and economic development - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 6

Transport investment, including exploitation of the opportunities created
by mechanical invention, depended on the surplus generated from economic
development. Economic development itself is facilitated by transport improvements
- both the capability of vehicles and the standards of the infrastructure on which they
operate. Together these reduce the time and cost involved in overcoming distance and
thus enhance the opportunities for trade, specialisation of production and economies
of scale. A classic example of this is provided by the brewing industry which has
evolved from small, independent local firms serving their tied houses by horse and drey
to national and even international conglomerates with transport forming a massive
logistical component in their operation.
The accompanying growth in personal incomes has facilitated the purchase of
passenger transport, initially in its cheaper public or 'mass' form - trams, trains and
buses - but increasingly via the acquisition of private, individualised modes - bicycles,
motor-cycles and cars. Mechanised transport not merely reduces the time and effort
involved in accessing facilities used previously, it also opens up a wider range of
opportunities which can be utilised given the ability to make longer journeys.
Because the volume of transport today is on such an enormous scale it is tempting
to imagine that travel itself is the product of the mechanised era. Yet centuries before
the invention of either the steam, internal combustion or jet engines, merchants,
diplomats, scholars and artists moved across the known world exchanging ideas and
goods, imposing religious and secular orders in shifting networks that represent the
very core of our civilisation. Meanwhile the mass of ordinary people lived, worked
and died near where they were born. Even today, in a society seemingly preoccupied
with mobility, many people still live within a few miles of their birthplace. But it is
the transformation in the daily lives of these ordinary people which has produced
the enormous growth in travel and traffic that is the object of attention of today's
transport planners and the focus of this topic.
Successive periods of economic development, often coupled with technological
advances in transport and communication, have altered the organisation and location
of industry. In itself this has generated enormous increases in freight movement and
business travel which can be regarded as the 'baseload' of contemporary transport
demand. But it has also altered the economic poles around which ordinary people
sustain their lives. Nationally there have been migrations over successive generations
to the more prosperous areas - first from villages to the towns and cities of the
industrial revolution, then to London and other cities with more modern industries,
more recently to southern England as a whole which is dominated by the growth
of 'London' as a metropolis of world-wide significance. Locally the focus of urban
activity has also shifted - firstly from religious centres and agricultural markets to
concentrations of heavy industry and mass manufacture; more recently to today's
regional office complexes, shopping centres, universities and mega-hospitals.
But there have also been fundamental changes in the living habits of people
themselves associated with economic advancement in general and transport
improvement in particular. In the 18th and 19th centuries only a tiny minority of
aristocrats or successful entrepreneurs was able to enjoy the benefits of both town
and country by having residences in both and moving seasonally between them.
Subsequently the mechanisation of transport - train, tram, bus, then car - facilitated
suburbanisation, giving the mass of the population the benefits of more spacious
housing and better living environments whilst retaining a degree of everyday access
to both town and country, albeit at the price of ever greater dependence on transport.