The use of practice theory in transport research

ABSTRACT

Mundane transport practices are implicated in a series of global harms, including those associated with climate change. Most agree that the way we travel day-to-day needs to shift. While agreement on the end goal is common, informing and enacting policies to implement change is an ongoing challenge, in part because of the sheer complexity of factors shaping the way we travel. Transport researchers need to develop an understanding of this complexity that is easily and elegantly translated into transport policy. Practice theory has potential to contribute to such understandings, and this paper provides a review of the ways it has been employed in contemporary transport research. Using a review of 38 studies, the paper highlights the benefits of the practice theory approach for research, and the applicability of the insights it generates for real world transport problems. The paper concludes that practice theory brings useful tools and concepts to understand both the complexity of transport, and the interplay between structure and the travelling agent, that is so often missed by traditional transport methodologies. In this way, it can, and does, add to the already well theorised and empiricised realm of transport studies. The approach, however, requires careful operationalisation and further development to fulfil its potential to produce research insights to capable of informing the urgent need to shift the way that we travel.

KEYWORDS:

• Practice theory
• transport
• review
• mobility
• elements
• bundling

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the useful comments of three reviewers of this paper who have helped to refine the manuscript and its contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).