Social perspectives: Transport as if people mattered

While social aspects of land passenger transport are slowly growing as a body of work, there is still considerable research needed to both understand the social value of transport and integrate this knowledge into transport and land use planning and policy. The chapter highlights areas of social research in transport that urgently need greater research. Such areas include the importance of transport to maintaining personal wellbeing; the impact transport may have on people, such as maintaining safety for children and young people; the difficulties associated with getting social impacts of transport into a governmental agenda; the extensive issues requiring research in relation to transport and industrialising countries and where most industrialising countries are racing towards a car dependency model of transport and marginalising the place of informal transport; and the growing issue of the importance of transport in planning for natural hazards associated with climate change.