During the sixties, research in transport in the netherlands was isolated from the other economic and social activities. The consequences of changes in economic and social patterns were hardly taken into consideration. When the negative external effects of traffic became a serious point of inconvenience by the end of that decade, more understanding was required about the interdependencies of the transport sector and the rest of society. An active government policy was called for. Multidisciplinary research teams were formed, first concentrating on the behaviour patterns of passengers. In the seventies this type of research was applied also in the freight-transport sector. The eighties brought an extra stimulus for multidisciplinary research since government policy in the transport sector appeared to have much smaller effects than was hoped for. At the same time fundamental changes in the global economic patterns took place, that required adequate answers. During the coming decade attention should be given to the following points: (a) full use should be made of new concepts, to be developed by a better integration of know-how available in the various disciplines. (b) more attention is needed for the social constraints when new concepts are considered. (c) the gradual development of economic and social interdependencies on a global scale require a research approach in transport that is not only multidisciplinary, but multicultural as well.
Abstract