Transport – the purposeful movement of people and goods which (generally) only occurs as a consequence of other activities taking place in different locations at different times – has long been a passion of mine, and I have been privileged to have studied it now for the last three decades. In particular, I am fascinated by how the design and operation of transport systems is so strongly influenced by a whole range of inter-related external or ‘contextual’ factors. Consequently, I’ve looked at how transport operates in a range of interesting circumstances – for instance, at the national level in Mauritius (Enoch, 2003), Japan (Enoch and Nakamura, 2008) and Cuba (Enoch et al, 2004), and at a community level in the case of the Amish people in the United States (Warren and Enoch, 2014). Over the past decade or so, these threads have led me towards imagining how transport systems might evolve in the future. This book is my attempt to format these imaginings into a coherent framework that might appeal to a wider audience than would a purely academic book.

Exploring the future

Uncertainty of what will happen next means that taking long-term decisions is fraught with risk. Hence the importance placed on the supernaturally derived insights of fortune tellers, clairvoyants, astrologers, prognosticators, prophets, augurs, diviners, soothsayers, oracles and seers throughout history. Even today we rely on the scientifically grounded (but still flawed) findings of futurists and forecasters of the weather and economic circumstances, for instance.