Every description of a transport context in the past or present is incomplete. There are always human experiences that remain unknown, just as with nonhuman impacts, such as to biota or structures. Conceiving futures about transport systems are even more fraught. Forecasting models rely on past data that was qualitatively chosen and manipulated, just as narratives we can tell about the future are fueled by personal experiences. Each perspective—each truth—is biased.

We must engage with the reality that any description of transport phenomena requires qualitative choices that guide which versions of data and stories the researcher or practitioner deems most important. To do so requires a critical review of how the way we think about these issues informs how we grasp reality, choosing between transport truths to guide decision-making. The thought process changes as an individual experiences, recalls, and selectively forgets knowledge about transport contexts. This experiential knowledge only scales up to organizational change to the extent that the experiences are communicated, recorded, and encoded as organizational changes.

This chapter shows four evolutions in how transport planners think: economic rationality, mobility vs. access, the role of public input, and dashboarding information for transport planning. Additionally, this chapter shows how each of these topics intersect with the LASTR framework—legitimacy, accessibility, social learning, transparency, and representativeness all play a role in transport planning's effectiveness, and can be analyzed in cases through a critical realist perspective.