Teaching transport geography: American Association of Geographers, Los Angeles, California, March 18–23, 2002

The issue of teaching transport geography at the undergraduate level has rarely been the focus of much discussion, although geographical education itself has received a lot of attention. 1 Over the last 40 years, transport geography has been part of the curriculum of many geography programs, providing a significant contribution, both conceptually and methodologically. Indeed, many spatial theories are relying on the concepts of distance, mobility and accessibility, perspectives on which transport geography offers a solid background. More recently, transportation networks and spatial organization issues have been notable contributions by the discipline to understand contemporary economic and social processes. With these issues in mind a panel on teaching transport geography was jointly organized by Frederick Stutz (San Diego State University) and Jean-Paul Rodrigue (Hofstra University) for the 2002 conference of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) in Los Angeles. The panel was sponsored by the AAG Transport Geography Specialty Group and held in honor of Edward Taaffe, a leading transport geographer who passed away in 2001. In addition to the presentations of the co-organizers, five panelists discussed various issues: Morton O Kelly (Ohio State University), Richard Knowles (University of Salford), Claude Comtois (Universite de Montreal), James Wang (University of Hong Kong) and Bruce Ralston (University of Tennessee). O Kelly recalled the pioneers of the modern transport geography curriculum that began in the 1960s with Ned Taaffe and Howard Gauthier among the most significant contributors in the United States. This curriculum development, virtually from scratch, led to one seminal textbook, Geography of Transportation (1973), which brought rigor in the description and optimization of transport systems. Many of today s American transport geographers were trained through this program. The second edition of the book (Taaffe et al., 1996), to which O Kelly contributed as the third author, is one of the most widely used textbook in transport geography. O Kelly emphasized the importance of analytical and methodological perspectives requirements for curriculums in transport geography, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Knowles underlined that the European perspective tends to be more policy oriented (as exemplified by Tolley and Turton, 1995), which reflects in the transport geography curriculum offered in many European universities. European governments tend to have a more direct involvement over their transport systems through public and semi-public agencies. Transport geographers can thus be involved in the decision-making process in the public and private sectors through policy evaluation and formulation. The European emphasis is fairly different from the more privately owned system in North America where deregulation has been a dominant paradigm since the last 20 years. Knowles also stated that economic integration and sustainability issues are receiving growing attention in the transport geography curriculum. He co-edits a widely used textbook (Hoyle and Knowles, 1998). Comtois stressed that transportation geography is not a science, but a field of application. The importance of supply chain management and logistics is a reality of contemporary world economics. This leads to provision of education in technical expertise related to information technology, inventory management and transport management. The objective is to provide knowledge and skills across business areas and industrial sectors within a supply chain context. This situation is conducive to programs in transport management shifting towards logistics management. Comtois also stated that there is no single model for effective teaching in transport geography. But if transport geographers are to exercise a greater role in transport planning and management, then there must be a clear orientation towards using both a cartographic and transport culture to develop efficient and quality networks at all scales with a view to reduce the degree of fragmentation. More importantly, transport geographers must be able to anticipate rather than follow policy needs. 1 For instance, the National Council for Geographic Education publishes the Journal of Geography, a journal devoted to geographical education.