Transport geography should follow the freight

In recent decades transport geography has been transformed by a topical emphasis towards passengers, which I perceive somewhat as a bias. The modes and terminals that support passengers have consequently received the bulk of the attention and parsing the topics presented at conferences such as the AAG confirms this view. Freight transportation has a reputation of being ‘‘uninteresting’’, probably because it concerns inanimate objects. For a contrarian, it is always a good idea not to follow the crowds and identify opportunities that are looked over. In such a context, freight appears as the underdog of transport geography in contradiction to its fundamental importance. Large volumes of containers are handled by maritime and rail transport systems, billions of barrels of oil flow through pipelines and supertankers, millions of parcels are handled on a daily basis, a staggering array of parts and finished products ranging from shoes to plasma televisions are shipped through distribution centers, all of this barely noticed. It is as if ports, rail yards and distribution centers were invisible. Trucks are only noticed when linked with congestion problems, as if they have no other role than move around and impair commuters in their journeys. In spite of this under-representation, it can be argued that freight transportation is a field of investigation that may have a richer geography than passengers. The mobility of passengers and freight has very different spatial dynamics. While the intensity of passenger transportation, in terms of the share of total passengers–km, is dominantly focused on a rather short distance range, freight transportation includes a wide range of geographical perspectives. The majority of passenger movements are related to commuting, shopping and recreation. These movements are bound by the time constraints of individuals who are unwilling to spend more than one hour per day moving. It is only when passenger movements are less bound to time constraints, such as for business or tourism, that their geographical range can be extended. Unlike passengers, freight has a lesser time constraint, although the emergence of logis-