Welcome!
Welcome to the Companion Website for Transforming Urban Transport: The ethics and politics of sustainable mobility (Earthscan: 2012), edited by Nicholas Low. This is a book about people, their desire for mobility, the impact of current forms of transport on the environment, and the way people struggle to make change. You can see from our logo (below) that we place people and not vehicles or infrastructure at the centre of the transport problem. The part-circle surrounding the walking person is actually a representation of an early form of traffic light. Look at the GAMUT website to find out more: http://www.abp.unimelb.edu.au/gamut/
You will find here summaries of the chapters, acknowledgements, additional unpublished documents of relevance and colour images illustrating aspects of what is being discussed in the chapters. Note that not all chapters contain additional website material. There is also a section on links to other relevant websites.
The photographs are all my own, and so they are of variable quality with no particular claim to artistic merit. I like to photograph places and events in cities to make more real what I am talking or writing about. Unfortunately, for sound reasons, images containing identifiable persons cannot be published without their consent, likewise images containing material advertising proprietary brands. Places illustrating sustainable transport generally contain both! It is either too lengthy a process, or simply impossible to obtain such consent so I can’t publish some of my favourite sustainable transport photos. Nevertheless many have managed to escape the publisher’s very proper censorship.
The internet contains much information about sustainable transport and transport politics. I have selected sites that I think are useful and relevant; many of them are already referenced in the book. Internet sites can disappear so I have mainly selected ones that are likely to last.
Nicholas Low, The University of Melbourne and GAMUT
Acknowlegements
This book and the research it reports would not have been possible without the generous support of the Volvo Research and Educational Foundations, and its remarkable programme in Future Urban Transport of which GAMUT is proud to be a member (www.vref.se/). Through GAMUT, VREF supported the PhD research of Crystal Legacy, Sophie Sturup, Julie Rudner, Tim Petersen and Kate Alder. The Foundations not only provided generous funding for the GAMUT Centre but also mounted regular forums for interaction among all the VREF Centres of Excellence. By supporting Centres of Excellence VREF has created unique platforms, and an academic network, for interdisciplinary research on real world transport issues. The senior management of VREF always provided encouragement and useful advice during their visits to Melbourne. In this respect we would particularly like to thank the former Chair of the Board of VREF (and former Executive Vice President of AB Volvo), Arne Wittlöv, former Chair of the VREF Scientific Council, Bengt Kasemo (Emeritus Professor of Physics, Chalmers University, Sweden) and former VREF Board member Måns Lönnroth (former Managing Director of MISTRA, Sweden’s Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research). VREF staff members Fabienne Niklasson, Peter Thormählen and Henrik Nolmark were very helpful to GAMUT in managing relations between VREF and GAMUT. We also warmly acknowledge the support of the OMEGA Centre for Mega Projects in Transport and Development at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, and in particular Harry Dimitriou with whom we worked closely to provide Australian case studies of mega urban transport projects. OMEGA provided financial support for the case studies and for the PhD research of Sophie Sturup. Carey Curtis provided support for Sophie Sturup at Curtin University in connection with the OMEGA project, and with Sophie Sturup and Nicholas Low wrote working papers for the OMEGA project. Imran Muhammad provided research assistance in the early stages of the OMEGA project.
Closer to home, the Australian Research Council provided funding for the research by Nicholas Low and Carey Curtis on path dependence in Australian transport policy, and – together with the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University, Melbourne – supported research by John Stone reported in Chapter 8 of this book. Terry Burke is acknowledged for his contribution to the research in Chapter 8. The New Zealand Transport Agency provided funding for the research on a benchmarking tool for planning of new public transport service patterns described in Chapter 9.
GAMUT itself depended on the collaboration of many scholars. Bill Russell was a Co-Director of GAMUT with Nicholas Low from its foundation in 2006 to 2011. Bill is a fountainhead of ideas and worked with Nick in 2005 to formulate the proposal for the GAMUT Centre and bid to VREF. He continues to inform and inspire our work. Bill has headed two government departments of the State of Victoria, Australia, and several research units. He was consulting editor for the International Encyclopaedia of Public Policy and Administration. He is co-author, with J. Shafritz, of the key international text on public sector management Introducing Public Administration, now in its 4th edition, published by Addison Wesley Longman (New York). Partners of GAMUT included Carey Curtis (Curtin University, Australia), Brendan Gleeson, Jago Dodson and Matthew Burke (Griffith University, Australia), Patrick Moriarty (Monash University, Australia), Fujio Mizuoka (Hitotsubashi University, Japan), Pan Haixiao (Tongji University, China), and at the University of Melbourne: Carolyn Whitzman, Sun Sheng Han, Kevin O’Connor, Marcus Wigan and Leigh Glover. Paul Mees was formerly a GAMUT partner and is now a senior researcher at RMIT University. He is internationally recognized for his work on public transport for dispersed cities, in for example the European Union’s 2005 HiTrans project on improving public transport in medium-sized cities and towns (www.hitrans.org). Paul Mees’s latest book Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age was published by Earthscan in 2010.
In this book Carey Curtis reports her research both for GAMUT and the Australian Research Council. The Curtin team included Jan Scheurer, Rachel Armstrong and Courtney Babb. Rachel Astle and John Odgers contributed substantially to research on path dependence reported in Chapter 6. Anthony Kent provided assistance in undertaking research for Chapter 7 – led by Leigh Glover. Chapter 10 by Carolyn Whitzman reported four years of research and action, with energy and ideas contributed by a large number of research assistants and research students, notably researchers, Lucy Pike, Jana Perkovic, Vivian Romero, Megan Worthington, and Dana Mizrachi, and PhD students Patrick Love, Julie Rudner, and Andrea Cook.
Importantly, Leanne Murphy and Danielle Hearn managed the day-to-day business of the GAMUT Centre, and liaison among partners and with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. Leanne and Danielle brought great charm and courtesy, as well as efficiency, to the demanding task of running the GAMUT office. We also thank their predecessors as managers: Kristen Sharp and Angela Munro.
Izumi Takeda (at Hokkaido University of Education at Iwamizawa, and founder of the National Railway Users’ Union in Japan) was an important contributor to the Japan research. We also wish to thank and acknowledge the valuable work of the following, who assisted with the initial GAMUT bid to VREF: Mark Considine (then Director of the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne) and the late Jim Stevenson (then with the Department of Infrastructure, Government of Victoria).
The GAMUT Advisory Board has met regularly to offer valuable advice on transport issues and research, as well as giving important professional and intellectual support for the GAMUT Centre and its programmes. GAMUT gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the present members of the Board: Michael Kennedy (Chair), Glenyys Romanes, Janet Rice, Wendy Morris, John Hearsch, Michel Masson and Robert Fremantle. Also we wish to thank Dennis Cliche – former Chair of the Board – and former members, Max Lay and Peter Christoff.
The GAMUT programme is supported by honorary fellows of GAMUT: Paul Barter (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore), Damon Honnery, (Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Monash University), Susu Nousala, (Research Fellow at RMIT University), Glen Searle (Editor in Chief, Urban Policy and Research), and Jan Scheurer (Research Associate at the RMIT-NATSEM Centre, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and at the School of the Built Environment and the Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University).
On a personal note, Nick Low thanks his wife Liz Low – Australian ceramic artist – for her continuing support during the preparation of the book.
The GAMUT Research Group
This book is the integrated product of an ongoing team of investigators, including full- and part-time academics, postdoctoral and PhD scholars. Not all of those mentioned below took part in writing the book but they all contributed to the research programme. In alphabetical order:
Burke, M. Dr Matthew Burke, Urban Policy Program, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Kessels Road, Queensland 4111, Australia: matthew.burke.@griffith.edu.au
Curtis C. Professor Carey Curtis, Department of Urban & Regional Planning, Curtin University, GPO Box U 1987, Bentley, WA 6845, Australia: C.Curtis@exchange.curtin.edu.au
Glover, L. Dr Leigh Glover, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: lglover@unimelb.edu.au
Han, S.S. Professor Sun Sheng Han, Planning Program, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: sshan@unimleb.edu.au
Honnery, D. Dr Damon Honnery, Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Monash University, Melbourne. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia: damon.honnery@eng.monash.edu.au
Kent, A. Dr Anthony Kent, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: ake@unimelb.edu.au
Legacy, C. Dr Crystal Legacy, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: cmlegacy@unimelb.edu.au
Low, N.P. Professor Nicholas Low, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: npl@unimelb.edu.au
Mizuoka F. Professor Fujio Mizuoka, Graduate School of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan: fmizuoka@econgeog.misc.hit-u.ac.jp
Moriarty, M. Dr Patrick Moriarty, Faculty of Engineering, Monash University, Caulfield, Victoria, Australia: patrick.moriarty@eng.monash.edu.au
O’Connor, K. Professor Kevin O’Connor, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: kevino@unimelb.edu.au
Pan, H. Professor Pan Haixiao, Department of Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, China: hxpank@online.sh.cn
Petersen, T. Mr Tim Petersen, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: tpet@unimelb.edu.au
Rudner, J. Ms Julie Rudner, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: jrudner@unimelb.edu.au
Russell, E.W. Professor Bill Russell, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne: ewrussel@hotmail.com
Stone, J.A. Dr John Stone, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: stoneja@unimelb.edu.au
Sturup, S. Ms Sophie Sturup, GAMUT, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: ssturup@omni.net.au
Takeda, I. Professor Izumi Takeda, Hokkaido University of Education at Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, Japan: ZXE01301@nifty.ne.jp
Whitzman, C. Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman, Planning Program, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia: whitzman@unimelb.edu.au
Wigan, M. Professor Marcus Wigan, The University of Melbourne, Australia: mwigan@unimelb.edu.au