Factores y repercusiones de la participación.

The major themes in transport research and policy in New Zealand are centred on how the provision of transport infrastructure and increase in capacity to move freight efficiently can encourage and drive economic development. In government policy we find aspirational themes of transport and sustainability have been replaced by concrete improvements to transport

infrastructure and development have become the focus of transport research within New Zealand over the last decade. There appears to be substantially less consideration in 2016 than there was in 2002 of the sustainable aspect of transport in New Zealand, with little apparent strategy and policy appetite for other initiatives apart from those that are consistent with considering transport as an inconvenient cost to other processes albeit one that, if minimised, stimulates economic

development. The mantra of ‘derived demand’ remains an unquestioned tenet in political debate and this may be because ‘the challengers of the conventional wisdom have not mastered their intricacies’ (Galbraith, 1958, p. 9) how to do that is not clear where there is no clear reason to change ‘business as usual’. The literature on transport shows little appetite to challenge the current understanding of transport theory. There seem to be no alternative transport option being

considered other than making what exists go faster and be more efficient.

Another factor that keeps transport on the fringes of research is suggested by Hall and Klitgaard, (2006) who say that a question rarely asked in economics is the relationship between energy and any economic activity. The root cause of this may be that orthodox economic theory does not predicate economic growth on energy flow and this is consistent with that view I have found this is not being addressed in research in New Zealand, even though increases in economic activity come with commensurate increases in the use of energy. What is shown is that the NZ Government does consider internationally imposed emissions levels to be a factor in future transport decisions where noncompliance would be a form of a threat to New Zealand as an exporting nation. The lack of recognition that the motive power that moves goods is almost fully dependent upon high quality energy is a problem that is largely and often wilfully ignored. The result is that transportation has been largely dematerialised in a geographic and economic sense (Rodrigue, Comtis, & Slack, 2006) and its ability to influence social structure is not deeply questioned. The current situation means there is little urgency to question or address theoretical perspectives of the interdisciplinary or macro systems impacts or long-term material nature and dependence on the finite stock of fuel that currently powers virtually all freight movement.

Transport research remains dominated by economic methodology and formalistic mathematical models steeped in a language that suggest a strong influence from neoliberal ideology and especially the tools of monetary cost benefit analysis that have become influential in how choices are evaluated when making make policy decisions that affect the general public. Neoliberalism ideological thinking is apparent in much of the last 50 years of government policy and strategy in defining the government’s role as letting the markets make all decisions about economic

development, and port infrastructure in particular. This seems to be at odds with the operation of actual economies in which transport functions are concatenations of biophysical and social activities and as physically based activity they always include materials and energy. However, these

considerations take second place to models borrowed from physics and used as the conceptual base for definitions and analyses of economic systems. The clearest example of this is the early 20th

subjective utility function ignoring material and energy as measurable physical inputs and outputs. The change favours market based human preferences as superior measures of production, so the biophysical basis was reduced in economic importance in what is considered the ‘real’ economy. An extreme expression of this is the view that the axioms of economic social science is at odds with and misunderstands the nature of science, social science and the nature of the economy itself. (Beinhocker, 2013). The frustration that this causes is apparent in the large body of literature that is critical of the current economic paradigm and as a consequence there is a growing interest and an ontological revisiting of what it is that grounds economic dogma. A growth of internet searches for ontology and economics (Fulbrook, 2009) shows this concern as the potential for change is

beginning to be explored (Lawson, 2003, 2012). However, it remains the case that Neoliberalist thinking supports and endorses the current limited methodological scope of freight transport as being something best left to and understood by engineers and economists.

It is therefore not surprising that most transport research is in support of increased GDP goals and industrial productivity, and with infrastructure development such as the building of stronger bridges and more motorway lanes. Government transport research objectives can be seen to filter out topics other than those connected with this narrow economic definition of freight transport. Again, this reflects that little consideration or importance is given to an overall theory covering the physical, energy and social aspects of transport. This also prevents a satisfactorily inclusive explanation of the wider conceptions of goods transport ‘within the world’. Transport becomes a descriptor within, but not the subject, aim or objective of that research. Each discipline that must deal with aspects of the movement of goods relies as a starting point on preconditions suited to or axiomatic to that discipline.

There is a lack of historical depth in the current theories supporting freight transport theory. For the last thirty years, the transport function has been cast almost exclusively in economic terms as a derived demand. In many ways this is understandable as modern freight transport has only seen year on year exponential growth and this does not challenge the theories or suppositions that support transport extension and expansion. There is also a lack of behavioural science research to complement early models of freight transport driven by technological advance, and the economic model of the past forty years (Hibbs, 2000). A unified theory could integrate transport and

communication elements with engineering, economic and behaviour science. All five elements are currently disjointed with respect to transport theory (Hibbs, 2000; Tiffin & Kissling, 2007).

Knowledge about transport systems lacks an adequate grounding or basis to address social

implications within the power of changes to freight systems. There is no interdisciplinary grounding theoretical basis that satisfactorily explains in other than economic terms why freight moves, and what significance should be placed upon moving freight from place to place. There are no

theoretical or objective limiters on when or where transport should happen.

The type of topics funded as freight transport research commissioned by governmental agencies are highly influenced by the economic ideology of the time and aimed at the execution of socio-political development that do not appear to take into consideration energy, social structure, and distance. To date, transport study offers solutions reducible to metrics, which are highly assumption bound. The transport resource has no informed quantum or inherent boundaries of when where and how much of it to use within the overall resource available to the social system it serves. What is lacking is a clearly explained theoretical transportation perspective instead to replace or at least to

compare with the way transport is explained by the range of disciples with an interest in freight transport.

The reduction of government interest in directing future transport system development leads to what Hesse calls a lack of entanglement with issues of space and time (Hesse & Rodrigue, 2006). This takes away any urgency to address the lack of unity between economic, ecological, and

geographical concepts as they apply to a philosophy of freight transport. Transport policy, focussing on safety and efficiency misses the big issues of freight systems design in an energy constrained world. However, the gaps are only gaps if one believes that there is no alternative to present neoliberal ideology. Some research attempts to patch and compensate for the gaps in the knowledge, but little is being done to consider freight transport system structures in timeframes compatible with the life of the transport assets, or in an energy constrained world. There is evidence of high level government concern on the reliance on one type of fuel to move goods to overseas markets. There seems to be moot acceptance of Reagan’s view that human intelligence, imagination, and wonder, will maintain growth. This is in abject contrast to the concerns that M King Hubbert, the originator of the concept of peak oil has when he said:

My analyses are based upon the simple fundamental geologic fact that initially there was only a fixed and finite amount of oil in the ground, and that, as exploitation proceeds, the amount of oil remaining diminishes monotonically

Transport theory in non-human driven processes is barely addressed at all in the literature. There is a need to understand and illuminate what the physical processes are that are represented by work and feedback in the ‘back box’ parts of transport evolutionary processes. These are processes that have known inputs and outputs but where the mechanism of the creation of a new totality is taken for granted and not explained. To understand transport processes requires this clarity and a language that describes how this physical information and material structure comes about. A metaphysics that explains intelligence in material systems would help to access further new knowledge.

While there is some wider discussion about goods movement I found limited evidence of transport being theorised in a wider context than as a derived demand or factor in production systems. The nature of research is questioned by some researchers, and this is evidenced by the staff of the Transport Studies Unit at University of Oxford who want to encourage an integrative and wider aspects of changes transport makes to the economy, environment, social equity and wellbeing (Handbook of transport and development, 2015). What I did not find in their work, or the literature reported on by Transport Research was research that extended outside of systems thought up by humans, or even any questioning about what could be learned from non-human social transport systems. In fact, transportation science research is trending in the other direction, with an almost total focus on machine powered transport.

A reason for this may be that during a time of consistent growth and abundant hydrocarbon energy supply that the transportation function hardly needs to be theorised at all. Here, linear modelling satisfies or satisfices. Research focusses on transport econometrics with a reliance on statistical analysis and incremental improvements to efficiency through the use of transport and

communication technology. Applied transport research mainly considers transport within a

predictable environment relying on past trends of constant and positive growth. Forecasts based on previous patterns have a reasonable degree of accuracy in such an environment but are exposed to the danger of being fooled by the logic of science (Taleb, 2008). Also, the selectivity of research and factors used for statistical analysis can be used to support ideological and political agendas. The research funding filtering process means that non-applied research, or research not in line with current thinking is subject to passive alienation through not being funded. The focus on applied transport research has suppressed research into other than for efficiency, safety, and cost.