Mobility in a modern society has two faces: increased access to many facilities due to the advanced transport technology and increased decay in quality of life due to congestion, pollution and noise annoyance. These contrasting (and sometimes paradoxical) developments have placed the mobility of man and society in the centre of scientific and political interest. The mobility processes in the past decades have had a significant impact on the subject matter of such disciplines as geography and regional science. In the period before the sixties much attention was focused on location analysis, while in more recent decades the analysis of spatial interactions and processes has come to the fore. Especially in the seventies the 'geography of movements' has opened a rich field of scientific research. So far, two new trends can be observed in the eighties, viz the analysis of individual spatial choice processes and the analysis of structural spatial changes. The next decades are likely to be marked by profound structural changes in the western societies, also influencing transport, communication and mobility. These changes make it necessary to respond as efficiently as possible to new trends and new challenges. A set of three major focal points for future research activities can be identified, viz analysis of the context, the behaviour and the policy-making. (author/publisher).
Abstract