Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil

The second, updated, paperback edition of Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl was published on May 1, 2010 by New Society Publishers (by Earthscan Publications outside Canada and the U.S.)

Produced a little over two years after the hardcover first edition, this substantially updated paperback edition attempts to make sense of the recent tumultuous events in transport and energy. These include the highest ever oil prices, in mid-2008, followed by a 75-percent price plunge, an astonishing decline in vehicle sales, and a major economic recession from which, in mid-2010, recovery is not assured.

The book’s main argument, informed by these recent events, is that revolutions in transport can be expected during the next few decades, chiefly because oil will become scarcer.

The new edition maintains a worldwide perspective, with focuses on the U.S. and China. It considers all kinds of motorized transport, whether for moving people or moving freight. It looks back 200 years and forward to 2025. It shows how energy-first transport planning can help sustain the utility, convenience and comfort of motorized transport while using much less oil.

The Authors

RICHARD GILBERT is a Toronto-based consultant whose work focuses on transport, energy, and urban governance. During a long, varied career he has produced 14 books and several hundred book chapters, major reports, and scholarly and popular articles on a wide range of topics. He was the elected representative of some 80,000 people on Toronto’s city council for many years and served as president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and as the first CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute. He and Rosalind have lived in the same house in downtown Toronto since 1971, where they enjoy visits by a daughter and three sons and numerous, mostly teenage grandchildren.

ANTHONY PERL is Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Vancouver’s Simon Fraser University. He has produced four other books including new Departures: Rethinking Passenger Policy for the Twenty-First Century and The Integrity Gap: Canada’s Environmental Policy and Institutions. He previously rode light rail to teach at the University of Calgary, took the subway to direct the City University of New York’s Aviation Institute, and caught the metro to work at the Laboratoire d’Economie des Transports in Lyon, France. He serves on the board of VIA Rail, Canada’s national passenger rail carrier.

515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 5K3
Tel. +1 787 782 7887. E-mail: aperl@sfu.ca

CONTENTS:

433 pages
56 charts and other figures
33 tables and 12 boxes
813 reference and other notes

PRAISE

DAVID BRAGDON, President of Metro Portland, Oregon:
Transport Revolutions draws lessons from the past to develop insightful scenarios about the future of transportation and how it will be fuelled, useful to students and policy-makers around the world. This wide-ranging book blends history, economics and political science to describe the complex relationship between petroleum and how our economies move.

ELIZABETH DEAKIN, Professor of City Planning and Director, Transportation Center, University of California:
A terrific book! Gilbert and Perl spell out the policy options that are before us and illuminate the consequences of the paths we may choose. Whether or not the reader agrees with their analysis, this is a book that deserves to be read, debated, and recommended to others concerned about the economic, environmental, and social wellbeing of our small planet.

HANK DITTMAR, Chief Executive of The Princes Foundation for the Built Environment; former Chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism; and author of Transport and Neigh-bourhoods, and co-author and editor of New Transit Town:
People writing about the future of transport tend to fall into one of two camps: technological determinists who argue that cars will always triumph and that oil depletion and climate change are illusory, and doomsayers who prognosticate a world of inevitable decline and loss of mobility. Perl and Gilbert’s Transport Revolutions takes the middle path, presenting the incontrovertible evidence about peak oil and climate change, and detailing sensible policies and investments which could avert the looming problems. This book deserves a wide audience, and will be useful for policy makers, analysts and professionals and environmentalists alike.

TONY HISS, Author of The Experience of Place: A New Way of Dealing with our Radically Changing Cities and Countryside, and visiting scholar, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NYU:
This remarkably timely, optimistic and practical book is about transitioning painlessly in two stages to an oil-depleted world. Gilbert and Perl have assembled, digested, and integrated a staggering amount of information, and they describe the revolutions ahead in clear, readable, non-jargony prose.

DAVE HUGHES, President, Global Sustainability Research:
Gilbert and Perl’s analysis of solutions to the transportation dilemmas facing us in an era of diminished hydrocarbon availability is absolutely fundamental reading for all of us, but particularly for policymakers who can make a difference. If policymakers ignore this book, it is at our peril.

Rt Hon EDWARD SCHREYER, former Governor General of Canada, former Premier of Manitoba:
Transport Revolutions is remarkably well researched. Those who see imminent catastrophic decline in oil-based energy for mobile transport will probably regard the authors Gilbert and Perl as being much too conservative or passive. Those who crave a future that can proceed as “business as usual” will regard this work as too disruptive and too much of a calI to us alI to mend our ways. Alternative energy sources, forms and modalities are defined in an objective overview of the various options. The case for renewables and the nuclear option is made with objective analysis. In summary, Transport Revolutions is a work of great merit and standard of measure.

CORRECTIONS TO TYPOS, ETC.

Figure 2.12 on Page 92: replace with the version here (which differs in several respects).

Figure 3.1 on Page 112: change the caption to “World cumulative oil consumption, 1860-20082”.

Figure 3.4 on Page 116: change the caption to “Actual and estimated total consumption (left panel) and per capita consumption (right panel) of oil for transport in OECD and other countries, 1971–203018”.

Figure 4.8 on Page 208: replace with the version here (which differs only in the labels for the horizontal axes).

Table 5.2 on Page 230: right justify the numbers in the column headed “Non-local pkm in billions (except per capita)”.

WE WOULD BE PLEASED TO BE NOTIFIED OF OTHER TYPOS, ERRORS, ETC.
(mail@richardgilbert.ca or aperl@sfu.ca)

ORDER

To order copies of the second edition of Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl

if you are in Canada or the U.S.
visit the Web site of
New Society Publishers at
www.newsociety.com/bookid/4053

if you are elsewhere
visit the Web site of
Earthscan Publications Ltd at
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=49418