اینترنت : بررسی نقش فن آوری های جدید در حال تحول، طبیعت و اثرات آن بر حمل و نقل

In the space of only a few years the Internet has emerged as a mainstream communications medium providing a growing proportion of the population with virtual access to goods, people, opportunities and services. Against a backdrop of highlighting how teleshopping and teleworking alongside traveller information services are advancing as a consequence of the Internet, this paper suggests that the Internet and the virtual mobility it affords must in due course be explicitly addressed within an integrated transport policy. The paper explores the relationships between use of information and communications technology and personal travel highlighting the importance of social issues in gauging whether or not a net positive effect in terms of travel demand and tripmaking can arise from increasing use of the Internet. Suggestions for a policy approach are also made.

At the turn of the millennium the Internet is a legacy from the end of one century that holds the prospect of becoming a significant part of our lives in the next. To understand why this prospect exists it is necessary to consider the role information plays in the way we live and the way in which society functions. Most of our daily lives are concerned with information management, exchange and interpretation. Many of the activities that we partake in are primarily to obtain, access and/or exchange information. In turn, the reason we travel is in order to participate in activities. Therefore, to a degree, travel demand and flows of vehicular traffic and people are derived from the need or desire to exchange information. This paper looks closely at the Internet in terms of how it is rapidly becoming, for a growing proportion of the population, a part of our everyday lives. In its 10 year spending plan for transport (DETR, 2000a) to support its integrated transport policy (DETR, 1998), the UK government states that “social and technological changes will also alter patterns of behaviour in unforeseen ways”. As the Internet becomes an integral part of our lifestyles so it will influence the nature of personal travel. Yet in terms of transport policy it appears that this is not currently being confronted. The interactions between the Internet, society and transport are complex with the Internet's effects set to become increasingly significant as this paper seeks to highlight. There is an urgent need for transport researchers to improve our understanding of this evolving situation as in turn there is a need for transport planners and policymakers to begin taking greater account of and responding to the potential impacts of and role of the Internet within an integrated transport policy. The paper first provides statistics reflecting to what extent the Internet is becoming a part of our lives and highlights the establishment of longitudinal surveys to monitor this over time. Examples of some key current uses of the Internet that are impacting upon travel demand and tripmaking are then considered. Subsequently the relationships between transport, the Internet and society are discussed in more detail drawing on views from commentators from both within and beyond mainstream transport studies. The paper concludes by returning to a consideration of how transport policy, planning and research is or should be addressing the role and impact of the Internet. There are a number of other papers that address the relationships between transport and telecommunications and these are cited later. However, this paper specifically presents a UK perspective whereas much previous research has originated in the US. It focuses particularly on the Internet and personal travel rather than the broader fields of telecommunications and transport (though this is not to imply that the uses and impacts of the Internet do not extend into other aspects of transport).

At the beginning of the new millennium the future is perhaps as uncertain as it ever was. For the transport profession there is a growing realisation and recognition of how much the future of transport is inextricably linked to the future developments of society, lifestyles and technologies. The multidisciplinary and multifaceted nature of issues incumbent on the transport profession to address are at risk of being overwhelming. It is tempting to assume that the nature and extent to which the Internet will impact upon transport is beyond our control or even our responsibility. Yet we must not ignore the complexities but confront them. There has been considerable work over recent years done by Mokhtarian, Salomon and others in terms of understanding telecommunications-transport interactions. Golob and Regan (2001) have also recently contributed a wide ranging paper on the topic. Across this literature the issues and potential consequences for transport of technology are well documented. However, compelling empirical evidence remains a scarcity, particularly with specific regard to the Internet. The rapidly maturing nature of the Internet and the proportions of populations that have access to it also mean that ‘past performance is not a guarantee of future performance’ in terms of the knowledge base we have. We are seeing a cultural change taking place alongside the technology revolution. People are becoming more exposed and familiar with the information age and are adjusting their habitual behaviours accordingly. Salomon (1986) discussed the potential impacts of teleshopping. Yet at that time the web had not even been invented, nor had most people predicted the pace at which it would enter into common use or anticipated the versatility and flexibility of the medium. Perhaps the degree of access to and quality of virtual services will at some point reach a threshold where impacts on personal travel become more marked. We too should remember that the web and other developments concerning the Internet are still in their infancy. What we know of the Internet today, impressive though it can seem, is likely to be paled into insignificance by what it will become. The transformation over 90 years from Henry Ford's Model T of 1908 to the Ford Mondeo of 1998 in terms of comfort, quality, and performance is perhaps an apt analogy of how we should expect the ‘Model T Internet’ of today to develop in the future, and in far less time than 90 years. Transport policymakers are as yet not taking sufficient account (with the exception of traveller information services' developments such as Transport Direct) of the Internet it would seem in terms of its (indirect) impacts on personal travel. Lyons et al., 2001a and Lyons et al., 2001b in their discussion of this issue note that whilst in the UK government's integrated transport policy (DETR, 1998) it states that “we are committed to making fullest possible use of new technologies to deliver the New Deal for transport”, in the government's subsequent £180 billion 10 year spending plan for transport (DETR, 2000a) the document notes only that “the likely effects of increasing Internet use on transport and work patterns are still uncertain, but potentially profound, and will need to be monitored closely” and that “predictions of the effects of greater use of the Internet, of e-commerce, and of teleworking vary considerably”. At present physical mobility and accessibility fall firmly within the remit of transport policy. The same is not true of the virtual counterparts in spite of them being able to achieve broadly similar goals and impacting upon physical mobility and accessibility. It is suggested therefore that in the longer run, virtual mobility and access afforded by the Internet and other forms of electronic communication should be explicitly addressed as part of an integrated transport policy. There remains a need to be able to forecast the uptake of new technology and assess its transport impacts before drawing firm policy conclusions. Nevertheless the nature of this paper warrants some final remarks suggesting what the transport policy response concerning the Internet should be. From several commentaries cited earlier, the temptation might be to concede that history tells us that increasing use of the Internet is not likely to lead to a reduction in travel and can therefore do little to support transport policy in its aims of reducing the length and number of motorised trips. Indeed society appears to embody an inherent need or desire for ‘quotas’ of mobility. Yet we cannot ignore that in terms of specific activities, such as shopping and working, for some (and a growing number of) people on some occasions the Internet is enabling virtual access to substitute for physical access and in many cases removing trips by car from our roads. It would appear that the problem arises in the consequent generation of new trips enabled by virtual mobility's saving in travel time. Crucial to whether or not the Internet can make a positive contribution to transport policy objectives is whether the newly generated trips are undertaken by car. The popularity and opportunities of the Internet have principally arisen through market forces. In policy terms the appeal of Internet use as an alternative to physical travel is firstly that it is a ‘carrot’ rather than a ‘stick’—it currently widens rather than restricts choice and benefits rather than penalises the individual in terms of travel time and cost savings. Secondly, the delivery of access to virtual mobility is not costing billions of pounds from the transport purse unlike other policy measures to encourage use of alternatives to the car. It is the author's belief therefore that the transport policy response to the Internet should be twofold: 1. Seek to accentuate positive effects of substitution that may be principally driven by market forces; and 2. Seek to refine and extend existing policies to ensure that newly generated travel demand is met through greater use of cycling, walking and public transport use and that other ‘secondary’ effects are suppressed. For example in areas where the frequency of Internet grocery shopping is high or growing, private non-residential parking charges for out-of-town supermarkets could be introduced to discourage car journeys when the alternative of virtual access is available. Such charges could then be used to subsidise store access via public transport for sectors of the public who either do not have home Internet access or access to a car. Alternatively charges might also subsidise renewal and expansion in the number of (smaller) city/town centre grocery retailing outlets. Parking charges in city centres might be increased with major leisure attractions encouraged or required to build the price of public transport access to the attraction into the overall ticket price. Such measures would encourage the public to invest their saved travel time and cost (accrued from substitution) more sustainably. The potential secondary effect of residential relocation further from the workplace arising from increasing amounts of teleworking could be suppressed by fiscal incentives for either employers or employees to live within a specified distance from the workplace (i.e. a catchment area policy). The Internet does not present a utopia for transport policy but rather some complex issues to grapple with. Yet we cannot afford not to consider its role in an integrated transport policy when, thus far, it seems that public transport (particularly for local travel) is unlikely by itself to be able to arrest society's dependence upon and use of the car in a world where lifestyles increasingly demand a flexibility and convenience of participation in time and space.