This licentiate thesis consists of two free-standing papers and a linking essay that links the papers by articulating an overall research aim and common theoretical background. The research aim is kept general and focuses on the role public transport can play in sustainable development. The work aims to contribute to a better understanding of why people do or do not choose to use public transport, to grasp the ideas/attitudes underlying the decisions made regarding the future of public transport, and to make suggestions for solving problems that may arise in public transport. The thesis has three theoretical bases: transport research, cultural theory, and sustainable development. Transport research is the starting point of the work, and I outline a gap in it that needs to be filled. This gap is filled by drawing on cultural theory connected to geographic terms. Sustainability discourses, on one hand, legitimate the work’s importance but also further stimulate the linking essay. Methodologically, the thesis can be placed in the hermeneutic tradition. Due to the work’s particular alignment with cultural theory, cultural relativism is supported. In addition, the interdisciplinary and multi-methodical approach can be explained by the work’s cultural focus. Against this background, the research concluded that, as a business, public transport has difficulties achieving the vaguely formulated ideological goals set for it at the national political level. As well, citizens have been marginalised in the goal-setting process. Citizen empowerment and a clearer formulation of the ideological goals are needed. Furthermore, public transport seems to be poorly rooted in society, and the present research found subregional differences that might be culturally based or explainable. The fact that public transport is poorly rooted in society can partially be explained by the marginalisation of citizens from decision making. Cultural differences in and between subregions should thus be taken into account by a farther-reaching customer perspective that acknowledges the importance of subregions. In conclusion, one should be sceptical as to public transport’s role in sustainable development. This pessimism arises from the technological step backward people would have to take in changing their main mode of transportation. Therefore, more all-embracing technical innovations are needed in the transport sector.

Les changements climatiques amènent des transformations profondes de l’environnement arctique. La diminution de l’étendue de la couverture de glace permet un accès facilité aux ressources naturelles et aux communautés nordiques. Au Canada, la région arctique est caractérisée par une géographie archipélagique et un réseau de transport rudimentaire. Le transport maritime est le mode privilégié pour l’acheminement du fret aux communautés et aux sites industriels de l’Arctique. La littérature scientifique présente des lacunes importantes au sujet de la navigation commerciale dans l’Arctique canadien. Peu d’études portent sur le trafic de ravitaillement en raison de son volume peu élevé et de la faible diversité des types de produits transportés, bien qu’il s’agisse d’une activité grandement significative pour les populations et l’économie du Nord. Cette recherche vise à combler cette lacune en dressant un portrait du transport maritime et de la performance des opérations portuaires dans l’Arctique canadien. L’étude est structurée en quatre parties. Une analyse du trafic et des échanges maritimes est d’abord réalisée sous trois échelles : internationale, nationale et intra-arctique. Ensuite, l’étude de la flotte et des routes fait ressortir la distribution géographique des transporteurs. Puis, la performance des ports est mesurée grâce à des indicateurs et un système de cotation. Finalement, une évaluation des opérations maritimes arctiques est menée par l’entremise d’informations récoltées lors d’entrevues avec les membres de l’industrie maritime, de conférences et de travail de terrain. Les sujets abordés concernent l’évolution de la desserte, les défis posés par la navigation en milieu arctique et le développement des ports du Nord canadien. Les résultats de l’étude mènent à la conclusion que le transport maritime dans l’Arctique est caractérisé par une croissance positive du volume acheminé et une implication profonde des transporteurs dédiés à la desserte nordique, mais des infrastructures portuaires et maritimes sous-développées. / Climate change brings deep transformations in the Arctic environment. The reduction of the ice cover allows better access to northern communities and natural resources. In Canada, the Arctic region is characterized by an archipelagic geography and undeveloped transportation network. Marine transport is the favoured mode for supplying freight to local communities and industrial sites. The scientific literature shows important gaps on commercial navigation in the Canadian Arctic. Few studies have been conducted on marine traffic in the Arctic due to small tonnage and low product diversity, even though it is a significant activity for the northern people and the regional economy. This research aims to fill this gap by assessing maritime transportation and port operation efficiency in the Canadian Arctic. The structure of this study is four fold. First, a traffic and trade analysis is conducted under three scales: international, national and intra-arctic. Second, a fleet and routing assessment is done by means of carriers’ geographic distribution. Third, port performance is measured through specific indicators. Fourth, an evaluation is held on arctic marine operations through information collected during interviews with members of the maritime industry, workshops and field work. Problems addressed regard evolution of the sealift, challenges brought by Arctic navigation and development of northern Canadian ports. Results of this research lead to the conclusion that Arctic marine transportation displays positive traffic growth and serious involvement by carriers dedicated to Arctic sealift, but under-developed port and maritime infrastructures.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The concept of the study of transport geography is not uniform. The aim of the diploma thesis is to evaluate and characterize development of research topics, main paradigms, concepts and research methods of transport geography since its establishment as an independent discipline, furthermore, to define new research methods. In ´90s the geography turns to mobility, to the one of the main concept of transport geography. Mobility has always been at the centre of an interest of transport geography, however, its conception and the approach to mobility has been changed throughout the time, as well as conception of accessibility. Research topics of transport geography have been significantly changed in last decades. Geographical research shifts from one-sided focus on the transport and transport system to the more various and more specific relationship where a man and his perception of space and movement plays the main part.

The study investigates the extent of distributional impacts of labour-intensive road projects using a geographical approach. The aim is to evaluate infrastructural effectiveness. The central premise is that the interface between road investment and economic development has broad implications that are beyond transportation’s basic purpose of providing access and mobility. Communities are motivated by the outcomes and impacts of road infrastructure development in improving the productiveness of the economy, in line with socio-economic development and other multiplying effects. The objective was to describe the nature and delivery mechanisms of labourintensive road projects, evaluate the impact thereof on the project participants and their communities and explore the constraints and challenges experienced by these initiatives. The impact of the Gundo Lashu programme was measured, based on an assessment of programme outputs, outcomes and impacts, to determine whether the project had the desired effects on individual participants and their households. A matched control case study design, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was adopted. The study found that the Gundo Lashu programme had achieved the expected outputs in terms of the total number of jobs created, total road length constructed and maintained. However, the communities’ socioeconomic outcomes and the impacts of the programme on poverty and sustainable livelihoods were mixed. These conclusions re-affirm the notion that the development of rural road infrastructure alone by labour-intensive construction methods, is not sufficient in tackling poverty. While government is focusing on addressing unemployment and skills development through labourintensive road construction programmes, there is a need to ensure proper integration of government services to make a significant impact. Huge deficiencies exist in the inter-linkages between the programme planning process and the municipal planning system and that there are a number of management and planning, structural and functional, human resources and funding barriers to proper planning, implementation and monitoring of projects within the Gundo Lashu programme. Various challenges and barriers emanates from lack of coordination, political interferences and lack of strategic direction. Key recommendations include comprehensive road planning, better project targeting mechanisms, development of guidelines for future maintenance, skills training and capacity development, and resultsbased monitoring. / Geography / D. Phil. (Geography)

Public transport policies play a key role in shaping the social and spatial structure of cities. These policies influence how easily people can access opportunities, including health and educational services and job positions. The accessibility impacts of transport policies thus have important implications for social inequalities and for the promotion of just and inclusive cities. However, in the transportation literature, there is still little theoretically informed understanding of justice and what it means in the context of transport policies. Moreover, few studies have moved beyond descriptive analyses of accessibility inequalities to evaluate how much those inequalities result from transport policies themselves. This is particularly true in cities from the global South, where accessibility and equity have so far remained marginal concerns in the policy realm. This thesis builds on theories of distributive justice and examines how they can guide the evaluation of transport policies and plans. It points to pathways for rigorous assessment of the accessibility impacts of transport policies and it contributes to current discussions on transportation equity. A justice framework is developed to assess the distributional effects of transport policies. This framework is then applied to evaluate recent transport policies developed in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in preparation to host sports mega-events, such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, which included substantial expansion of the rail and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure. This research presents ex-post analyses of the policies implemented between 2014 and 2017 and ex-ante analysis of an as yet unfinished BRT project. It evaluates how the planned transport legacy of those mega-events impacted accessibility to sports venues, healthcare facilities, public schools and job opportunities for different income groups. The results show that there were overall accessibility benefits from the expansion in transport infrastructure between 2014 and 2017, but these were generally offset by the reduction in bus service levels that followed an economic crisis that hit the city after the Olympics. Quasi-counterfactual analysis suggests that, even if the city had not been hit by the economic crisis, recent transport investments related to mega-events would have led to higher accessibility gains for wealthier groups and increased inequalities in access to opportunities. Results suggest that those investments had, or would have had, greater impact on inequalities of access to jobs than in access to schools and healthcare facilities. The evaluation of the future accessibility impacts of the unfinished BRT corridor, nonetheless, indicates that such project could significantly improve access to job opportunities for a large share of Rio's population, particularly lower-income groups. Spatial analysis techniques show that the magnitude and statistical significance of these results depend on the spatial scale and travel time threshold selected for cumulative opportunity accessibility analysis. These results demonstrate that the ad-hoc methodological choices of accessibility analysis commonly used in the academic and policy literature can change the conclusions of equity assessments of transportation projects.

Autonomes Fahren könnte Autonutzung und -besitz grundlegend verändern – mit erheblichen Auswirkungen darauf, wie mit dem Automobil umgegangen wird, wie Mobilität und Verkehr künftig organisiert und städtebauliche und Verkehrsinfrastrukturen gestaltet werden. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, zu einer frühzeitigen und umfassenden Auseinandersetzung mit der Technik aus empirisch-sozialwissenschaftlicher Sicht beizutragen, sowie wesentliche Einflussfaktoren und Dynamiken der Technikentwicklung zu identifizieren, um diese gestaltend begleiten zu können. Bei technologiebasierter Entwicklung ist eine Vorhersage von möglichen Entwicklungspfaden schwierig, und Akzeptanz gilt als Schlüsselfaktor für die erfolgreiche Produkteinführung. Sie vollzieht sich mittels soziotechnischer Konstruktions- und Veränderungsprozesse und ist abhängig von Personen, deren Einstellungen, Erwartungen und Handlungen, ihrer Umwelt, ihrer Werte- und Normrahmungen sowie Veränderungen im Laufe der Zeit. Diese Parameter werden in der Debatte derzeit noch wenig beachtet. Verschiedene qualitative Methoden bilden die Grundlage für eine erste Exploration und Strukturierung des noch wenig bekannten Untersuchungsgegenstands. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Akzeptanz des autonomen Fahrens wesentlich vom Zusammenspiel individueller und gesellschaftlicher Einflussfaktoren abhängt – die nicht alleine über Einstellungsparameter erfasst werden können. Sie lassen sich erst vor dem Hintergrund von handlungsleitenden, kollektiven Orientierungen zu aktuellen Autonutzungspraktiken verstehen. Gleichzeitig ist ein konsistenter, in sich geschlossener Entwicklungspfad zum autonomen Fahren derzeit noch nicht absehbar, und es sind einerseits Entwicklungen möglich, die das System der Mobilität grundlegend verändern könnten. Andererseits sind aber auch Veränderungen denkbar, die das bestehende System eher ergänzen, als es radikal zu transformieren. Vor diesem Hintergrund ergeben sich je spezifische Implikationen für die weitere Forschung. / Autonomous driving could fundamentally transform car use and ownership and considerably change the way how we interact with the automobile, how mobility and transport are organized in the future and how urban and transportation infrastructures are designed. The objective of this study is to engage empirical, social sciences in a timely and comprehensive debate on autonomous driving, so the key factors and dynamics of this technological development can be identified and shaped. Forecasting development trajectories of technology-based developments proves especially difficult, and acceptance is thought to be a key factor for a successful product implementation. Acceptance takes place in the context of sociotechnical construction and transformation processes; it is dependent on individuals, their attitudes, expectations and actions, their environment, their value- and norm-framing, and on changes over time. User perception, evaluation and contextualization in relation to autonomous driving have largely gone unheeded, even though they are deemed central to technology acceptance. A set of distinct qualitative methods served to explore and structure a research topic little known to date. In sum, the results indicate that acceptance of autonomous driving fundamentally relies on the interaction of individual and societal factors that cannot be determined through attitudinal parameters only. They are better understood against the background of implicit and habitual orientations towards current car use and ownership practices. At the same time, the studies have shown that a consistent and determined development path cannot be predicted yet. While there are chances for the mobility system to undergo a fundamental transformation with the implementation of autonomous vehicles – on both supply and demand sides – potential changes could also rather complement the existing system. Specific implications for future research will be discussed in the thesis.

No description available.

The study investigates the extent of distributional impacts of labour-intensive road projects using a geographical approach. The aim is to evaluate infrastructural effectiveness. The central premise is that the interface between road investment and economic development has broad implications that are beyond transportation’s basic purpose of providing access and mobility. Communities are motivated by the outcomes and impacts of road infrastructure development in improving the productiveness of the economy, in line with socio-economic development and other multiplying effects. The objective was to describe the nature and delivery mechanisms of labourintensive road projects, evaluate the impact thereof on the project participants and their communities and explore the constraints and challenges experienced by these initiatives. The impact of the Gundo Lashu programme was measured, based on an assessment of programme outputs, outcomes and impacts, to determine whether the project had the desired effects on individual participants and their households. A matched control case study design, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was adopted. The study found that the Gundo Lashu programme had achieved the expected outputs in terms of the total number of jobs created, total road length constructed and maintained. However, the communities’ socioeconomic outcomes and the impacts of the programme on poverty and sustainable livelihoods were mixed. These conclusions re-affirm the notion that the development of rural road infrastructure alone by labour-intensive construction methods, is not sufficient in tackling poverty. While government is focusing on addressing unemployment and skills development through labourintensive road construction programmes, there is a need to ensure proper integration of government services to make a significant impact. Huge deficiencies exist in the inter-linkages between the programme planning process and the municipal planning system and that there are a number of management and planning, structural and functional, human resources and funding barriers to proper planning, implementation and monitoring of projects within the Gundo Lashu programme. Various challenges and barriers emanates from lack of coordination, political interferences and lack of strategic direction. Key recommendations include comprehensive road planning, better project targeting mechanisms, development of guidelines for future maintenance, skills training and capacity development, and resultsbased monitoring. / Geography / D. Phil. (Geography)

This study addresses the matters of territorial management, regional setting and spatial organization present in the conceptual and methodological basis of PNLT (National Plan for Logistics and Transportation), evaluating, from the perspective of geographical science, the capabilities of reading and intervening the spatial organization of transport systems from its planning instruments. To this end, we review the theoretical and conceptual framework for defining the geographical means of research for approaching the theme of freight transportation and, thereby, establishing the parameters of \"geographical reading\" to be used in PNLT s conceptual and methodological basis. After defining the key elements to understand the geographical issues of freight transport systems, we proceed to the approach of \"logistics.\" In this regard, we stress the ambiguous character of this concept, pointing to its operational capacity of the circulatory logics in the modes of production and, thus, emphasize its \"territorial\" aspects. By defining the concepts of Business Logistics System (BLS) and Territorial Logistics System (TLS), we address specifically the plan s conceptual and methodological basis. Hence, we conclude that, although it is important to break the inertia of the of the sector planning by the Brazilian State in past decades , the plan has reading instruments unable to geographically contextualize transport systems in the country, and therefore their intervention instruments , especially infrastructural projects, are settled in methods strictly based on demand supply/cost benefits perspective and, therefore, ineffective in the assemblage of space, territorial and regional issues that rely on the transportation system of Brazil. / Este trabalho aborda as questões de ordenamento territorial, configuração regional e organização espacial presentes na base conceitual e metodológica do PNLT (Plano Nacional de Logística e Transportes), avaliando, pela ótica da ciência geográfica, as capacidades de leitura e intervenção na organização espacial dos sistemas de transportes a partir de seus instrumentos de planejamento. Para tal, procuramos revisar o arcabouço teórico-conceitual da Geografia para definição de seus meios operacionais de pesquisa para a tratativa da temática do transporte de cargas, estabelecendo-se os parâmetros da leitura geográfica a ser empregada na base conceitual e metodológica do PNLT. Após a definição dos principais elementos para se compreender as questões geográficas dos sistemas de transporte de cargas, tratamos da logística . Nesse sentido, salientamos o caráter polissêmico deste conceito, apontando para a sua capacidade de operacionalização das lógicas circulatórias nos modos de produção e dessa forma, enfatizamos seu caráter territorial . Após definir os conceitos de Sistema Logístico Empresarial (SLE) e Sistema Logístico Territorial (SLT), abordamos especificamente a base conceitual e metodológica do plano. Destarte, concluímos que, apesar de ser importante para o rompimento da inércia no planejamento do setor pelo Estado brasileiro na última década, o plano possui instrumentos de leitura incapazes de contextualizar geograficamente os sistemas de transportes do país, e, portanto, seus instrumentos de intervenção, mormente os projetos infraestruturais, estão assentados em metodologias que estão estritamente baseadas na perspectiva demanda-oferta/custo-benefício e, por isso, pouco efetivas no agenciamento das questões espaciais, territoriais e regionais que envolvem os sistemas de transportes de cargas do Brasil. / Mestre em Geografia