2014 Sessions

In total, there were 24 fantastic TransportCamp sessions that were proposed during 'agenda setting'. You can take a look at the final agenda matrix.

Our amazing Guest Bloggers created a blog post for each unconference session.  Each post includes all the essential session details, links and a sumamary of all the key points of discussion.

Comments are enabled, so feel free to continue the conversation in the  post or contact the session leader directly.

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The Emotional Drivers of Society

Session coverage by guest blogger Liam Stanley

Session Details 

  • Presented by Rohan White (Email, LinkedIn)
  • Location: Room Three
  • Time: Session #6 (3:00pm - 3:35pm)
  • Number of Attendees: 19
  • Format: Presentation and discussion

Rohan is a professional driving instructor, who shared his thoughts and experiences of over 10 years teaching people how to drive.

 

The feelings and needs of the motor car driver and their far reaching influences. Areas discussed:

  • While some people drive, all people at some point within their journey become pedestrians…
  • Individual emotions, are the result of spatial separation
  • Newfound technology, initial fear within the community?
  • Elevation of the transport mode to a status symbol
  • Perspective of most individuals first time encounter with the car: total ambivalence

Terrified of the capacity for speed without the learnt skill to control

The individual does feel the risk of total loss of control, unlike experienced individuals who might be standing by.

Drivers develop the process of making high risk decisions within very small timeframes.This though, is a common acceptance and a required skill to master in a car dominated society.

Satisfaction from mastering the ability to individually achieve effortless movement.

Showing of collective coordination, 100’000 people moving about showing respect for other road users, either through controlled mechanisms or mutual knowledge that if they don’t the outcome will be unfortunate for both parties involved.

However once the skill is learnt, the ability to move without little human effort an urgency to move develops. Does this then create a right for the driver to be always moving?

Expectation of movement - is it the intrinsic nature of humans to desire this movement? The ability to move without individual exertion is a highly addictive experience, almost intoxicating in nature?

Comments:

How to overcome the drivers who misuse this power? Those who crave the effortless movement.

  • It becomes very hard to take away their ability to move, as they truly hold the skill of driving a car as one of their individual strengths. To take that away, leads not only to a loss of their mobility but to their individual identity and self worth.

Further discussion about the right to move - drivers usually underestimate travel times by significant amounts, leading to frustration when stationary or the realisation that the route is actually going to take far longer than they perceive.

While the perception of time on public transport is the opposite, waiting times are perceived to be longer than they actually are, only once the person is on their mode of transport do they start to perceive time similar to what it really is.