The car, and the range of social and political institutions which sustain its dominance, play an important role in many of the environmental problems faced by contemporary society. But in order to understand the possibilities for moving towards sustainability and 'greening cars', it is first necessary to understand the political forces that have made cars so dominant. This book identifies these forces as a combination of political economy and cultural politics. From the early twentieth century, the car became central to the organization of capitalism and deeply embedded in individual identities, providing people with a source of value and meaning but in a way which was broadly consistent with social imperatives for mobility. Projects for sustainability to reduce the environmental impacts of cars are therefore constrained by these forces but must deal with them in order to shape and achieve their goals.

The car, and the range of social and political institutions which sustain its dominance, play an important role in many of the environmental problems faced by contemporary society. But in order to understand the possibilities for moving towards sustainability and 'greening cars', it is first necessary to understand the political forces that have made cars so dominant. This book identifies these forces as a combination of political economy and cultural politics. From the early twentieth century, the car became central to the organization of capitalism and deeply embedded in individual identities, providing people with a source of value and meaning but in a way which was broadly consistent with social imperatives for mobility. Projects for sustainability to reduce the environmental impacts of cars are therefore constrained by these forces but must deal with them in order to shape and achieve their goals.

Americans for years have treated the automobile as a form of freedom. People can now live in the country and work in the city. Suburbia and shopping malls were made possible by the automobile. And none of this would have been possible without huge legal and financial commitments made by all levels of government to expand America's interstate freeway systems, regional highways, expressways, arterials, commercial avenues, and residential streets. Our society now has a number of significant diseconomies associated with the individual use of the automobile. Traffic congestion and pollution in inner cities have led to a new wave of policies and practices to improve these conditions. The focus of public officials and citizens in most large urban centers is on public mass transportation, such as trains, light-rail systems, and the increased use of buses. In the interim, traffic management practices have increased in importance. This volume collects outstanding recent essays on all aspects of this complex subject. It includes numerous case studies on how cities, towns, and communities throughout the nation are managing the unrestricted use of the personal automobile. Other chapters discuss the future of urban transportation and examines evolving trends. Also included are appendices containing important information in the field.

Motor vehicles are prominent among the flows of exports and imports for Canada, Germany, Japan and the United States, and these trade flows are heavily influenced by the basic relative competitiveness of the production processes for automotive manufacturing. In this book the authors analyse in depth the factors that contributed to the comparative cost competitiveness of the four countries' auto industries over the period 1961-84, and disentangle the factors contributing to the Japanese cost and efficiency advantages. Their main contribution is to provide estimates of comparative costs of automobile production (both short-run and long-run) and the sources of these cost differences, based on the econometric cost-function methodology. An innovation is the careful treatment of capacity utilization, one of the most important sources of short-run cost and efficiency differences. This methodology is also used effectively in an analysis of the Canada-US Auto Pact, a unique experiment in trade liberalization.

Since the early 1990s, federal transportation laws have slowly started to level the playing field between highway and alternative transportation strategies, as well as between older and newer communities. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century made substantial changes in transportation practices. These laws devolved greater responsibility for planning and implementation to urban development organizations and introduced more flexibility in the spending of federal highway and transit funds. They also created a series of special programs to carry out important national objectives, and they tightened the linkages between transportation spending and issues such as metropolitan air quality. Taking the High Road examines the most pressing transportation challenges facing American cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas. The authors focus on the central issues in the ongoing debate and deliberations about the nation's transportation policy. They go beyond the federal debate, however, to lay out an agenda for reform that responds directly to those responsible for putting these policies into practice -leaders at the state, metropolitan, and local levels. This book presents public officials with options for reform. Hoping to build upon the progress and momentum of earlier transportation laws, it ensures a better understanding of the problems and provides policymakers, journalists, and the public with a comprehensive guide to the numerous issues that must be addressed. Topics include: A wide-ranging policy framework that addresses the reauthorization debate An examination of transportation finance and how it affects cities and suburbs An analysis of metropolitan decisionmaking in transportation The challenges of transportation access for working families and the elderly The problems of increasing traffic congestion and the lack of adequate alternatives Contributors include: Scott Bernstein (Center for Neighborhood Technology), Edward Biemborn (University of Wisconsin), Evelyn Blumenberg (UCLA), John Brennan (Cleveland State University), Anthony Downs (Brookings), Billie K. Geyer (Cleveland State), Edward W. Hill (Cleveland State), Arnold Howitt (Harvard University), Kevin E. O'Brien (Cleveland State), Ryan Prince (Brookings), Claudette Robey (Cleveland State), Sandra Rosenbloom (University of Arizona), Thomas Sanchez (Virginia Tech), Martin Wachs (University of California, Berkeley), and Margy Waller (Brookings).

This collaborative study between the NRC and the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE) addresses the problems facing China in the next twenty years as it attempts to provide personal transport desired by millions of Chinese, while preserving the environment and the livability of its cities. According to Song Jian, president of the CAE, the decision has already been taken to produce a moderate cost family car in China, which will greatly increase the number of vehicles on the roads. This study explores the issues confronting the country, including health issues, the challenge to urban areas, particularly the growing number of megacities, environmental protection, infrastructure requirements, and technological options for Chinese vehicles. It draws on the experience of the United States and other countries and review model approaches to urban transportation and land use planning. Recommendations and policy choices for China are described in detail.

Sweeping in scope, as revealing of an era as it is of a company, Stagecoach is the epic story of Wells Fargo and the American West.

The trail of Wells Fargo runs through nearly every imaginable landscape and icon of frontier folklore: the California Gold Rush, the Pony Express, the transcontinental railroad, the Civil War, and the Indian wars. From the Great Plains to the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, the company's operations embraced almost all social, cultural, and economic activities west of the Mississippi.

As its reputation for speed and dependability grew after the Gold Rush, the sight of a red-and-yellow Wells Fargo stagecoach racing across the prairie came to symbolize faith in a nation's progress. For a time, Wells Fargo was the most powerful and widespread institution in the American West, even surpassing the presence of the federal government.

Stagecoach is a fascinating and rare combination of Western and business history. Along with its rich association with the frontier, readers will discover that swiftness, security, and connectivity have been constants in Wells Fargo's 150 years.

This volume contains the formal proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT), which was held at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia on 16-18 July 2002. The ISTTT series is the peak gathering for the world's transportation and traffic theorists. It deals exclusively with the scientific aspects of transportation and traffic phenomena. Although it embraces a wide range of specific topics, from traffic flow theory and travel demand modelling to road safety and logistics and supply chain modelling, the work of the ISTTT is hallmarked in all its topics of interest by innovation, research and rigour in analytical treatment of real world transport and traffic problems. The ISTTT has been held in cities around the world about once every three years, starting in Detroit in 1959. Subsequent symposia have been held in London, New York, Karlsruhe, San Francisco (twice), Sydney, Kyoto, Toronto, Delft, Boston (Mass), Yokohama, Lyon and Jerusalem. No more than 35 papers are selected for presentation, following a rigorous two-stage selection and peer review process (of extended abstracts and full papers). The proceedings define the international state of the art in traffic and transport research at the time of the symposium. Amongst the topics covered in the book are: traffic flow theory, traffic management and traffic control; intelligent transport systems; analytical techniques for road safety; travel demand modelling, including dynamic traffic assignment, route control and congestion pricing; environmental impact analysis for transport systems; public transport planning, service design and operations; freight transport modelling; logistics and supply chain modelling; pedestrian and bicycle transport.

Long hours, low wages, and unsafe workplaces characterized sweatshops a hundred years ago. These same conditions plague American trucking today.
Sweatshops on Wheels: Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation exposes the dark side of government deregulation in America's interstate trucking industry. In the years since deregulation in 1980, median earnings have dropped 30% and most long-haul truckers earn less than half of pre-regulation wages. Work weeks average more than sixty hours. Today, America's long-haul truckers are working harder and earning less than at any time during the last four decades.
Written by a former long-haul trucker who now teaches industrial relations at Wayne State University, Sweatshops on Wheels raises crucial questions about the legacy of trucking deregulation in America and casts provocative new light on the issue of government deregulation in general.

No other American car carries the mystique of the Corvette, and early in 1997, General Motors unveiled the stunning fifth-generation Corvette to universal acclaim. But GM's triumph was hard-won -- the legendary sports car had nearly fallen victim to internal company politics and a squeeze on profits. In this candid and compelling book, journalist James Schefter reveals the inside story of the people who saved and reinvented the Corvette, from the drawing board to the assembly line.

For eight years, Schefter enjoyed unprecedented access to every part of GM, including areas off-limits to many company vice presidents. A true insider, he observed the new Corvette's odyssey from sketch to clay model to prototype to production vehicle. He accompanied test drivers across scorching deserts and snow-packed mountains. And he came to know the fiercely dedicated team of designers, engineers, and executives who fought and achieved their dream: a new Corvette that is better conceived, better built, and less expensive than its predecessors. The Corvette's odyssey to reclaim its glory is a thrilling testament to the endurance of American spirit.

To its critics, the automobile is a voracious consumer of irreplaceable energy resources, a leading polluter of the environment, and a destroyer of cohesive communities. The most outspoken opponents call for greater regulations and restrictions to ultimately replace the automobile as the country's primary means of transportation. But their proposals all ignore one simple fact: Americans love their cars Millions of citizens have made the automobile the most successful method of mass transportation ever developed, and they are not about to give up the personal mobility it offers. This book presents the controversial view that, for the vast majority of Americans, the automobile is not the problem, but the solution to transportation needs. While acknowledging the automobile's significant drawbacks, the author refutes much of the shrill rhetoric and doomsday predictions of its opponents. He takes a skeptical look at the major policy initiatives to tax, regulate, and provide alternatives to the automobile, pointing out that any policies designed to remove Americans from their cars without offering them a superior means of mobility are "worse than useless" and doomed to failure. The book offers suggestions and guidelines for politically realistic initiatives that preserve the benefits of the automobile while building public support for policies that will reduce its negative effects on energy use and the environment.

Hardbound. This volume comprises twenty papers originally presented at the 4th Meeting of the EURO (Association of European Operational Research Societies) held in Newcastle. Topics covered at the conference included: traffic assignment; estimation of origin-destination flows; traffic modelling; traffic management and control; transport network analysis and design; transportation planning methods; routing and scheduling; and ITS applications.Bringing together academics, consultants and civil servants with a shared interest in the application of Operational Research techniques for solving transport problems, this collection addresses key recent developments in the theory and applications of transportation science, particularly those based on OR methods such as optimisation, mathematical programming, stimulation, and artificial intelligence.

An examination of how the automobile has ravaged America's cities and landscape since the end of the 19th century together with a strategy for reversing their automobile dependency. The text provides a history of the rapid spread of the automobile and documents the huge subsidies commanded by the highway lobby, to the detriment of once-efficient forms of mass transportation. Demonstrating that there are economic, political, architectural and personal solutions to the problem, it shows that radical change is entirely possible.;The book should be of value to everyone interested in the history of America's relationship with the car, and in the prospect of returning to a world of human mobility.

Our transportation networks are the basic infrastructure supporting our daily life and economic activities and are in constant need of improvement and maintenance - but who should pay for their improvement? The state through direct and indirect taxes? The user through tolls and fares? The transport operator? And who should pay for the environmental impact?

This book discusses the basic concept and practical conditions of financial resources for transportation systems. After describing the theoretical basis of burden, the book introduces the policies and financial systems established for transportation in some developed countries (Germany, France, UK, USA, Japan) and compares them from an analysis viewpoint. The book then offers a methodology for comparing the structure of financial resources and presents calculations based on the investment amounts the different groups (eg. transport operators, the state) must contribute to sustain and improve the transport system.

In the first half of the book, the focus is on what positions each country takes in regard to:
1) The responsibility of the public sector and the range of participation by the private sector
2) The balance of burden covered by general funds and that covered by users
3) The balance of burden covered by present financial resources and that as set aside for the future as debt.

The second half clarifies how such national policies are reflected in the actual financial resources. Here, after a detailed review of the financial systems related to transportation in various countries, a methodology for an international comparison of financial resources for the improvements of transportation systems is shown.

Societal trends have made the need for better travel demand forecasts more urgent, at the same time as making people's travel and activity patterns far more complex. Traditional traffic flow models are no longer sophisticated enough to cope.

Activity analysis is seen by many as the solution. It has had a short but intense history in geography, urban planning, time use research and, more recently, transportation. Pioneering activity-based models have now been developed to the point where, some argue, it is time to abandon the traditional four-step model for transportation demand forecasting and to adopt activity-based approaches instead. Others claim that the complexity of such approaches, and their tremendous data requirements, prevent them from having a significant impact.

This book explores these claims and the issues associated with them. An introductory section outlines the debate. The body of the work is organised in four sections: modelling developments; theories and empirical analyses; data needs and data representation; and policy analysis. The final section discusses future research directions.

Hardbound. Travel behaviour research has a pivotal role to play in informing the current worldwide debate over the degree to which the growth in personal travel, notably by private motor vehicle, should be encouraged or controlled. At stake are complex public interests concerning air quality, energy, lifestyle, economic development and the built environment.This international collection of papers on current methodological and substantive findings from the analysis of personal travel is written by leading travel behaviour researchers from the social and engineering sciences. It is organised in four sections: traveller activity and perception; Stated Preference methods; dynamic behaviour; and improvement of behavioural travel models.

This volume, the first to result from the Diebold Institute Information-Based Infrastructure Project, explores the links between business and government in the development of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technology. The work focuses on road and vehicular infrastructures, comparing those of the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and the roles that ITS can play in solving major current and anticipated future transportational problems. Special attention is given to environmental and economic concerns.

The world's infrastructure requires refurbishing, but it especially requires rethinking. The computer has transformed business enterprises and now information technology can change our environment. This book explores the benefits and how to achieve them through the use of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The implementation of ITS will potentially lead to individual drivers, fleet operators, and public transit users saving vast amounts of journey time and fuel, to a significant reduction in pollution and to improved road safety. The Japanese are ahead of the U.S. and Europe in the area of intelligent transportation systems, using position location devices, and electronic maps.

Most look at this development as one that helps speed passenger cars, but this book details the economics which point to the technology being equally good for speeding trucks and easing the movement of freight. Traffic avoidance is only part of the problem although route guidance is helpful. Financing of projects in ITS is an important area for innovation and ITS could be a source of revenue to municipalities rather than an expense.

Railroad branch-line abandonment, grain subterminals, and major changes in rural land use and transportation patterns are generating heavy truck traffic on low-volume collector and arterial highways. Unfortunately, these changes are occurring at a time when America's highway network is under-funded and deteriorating. Tolliver presents an integrated set of methods for projecting the effects of rail-line abandonment and rural land-use changes on future highway costs. This unique book is analytical yet practical. It provides intuitive insights into the complex forces that generate truck traffic and lead to the deterioration of pavements and, at the same time, contains many useful and replicable formulas, techniques, and models. Unlike existing texts in highway engineering, this book focuses on freight transportation demand and the modeling of heavy truck traffic flows. Through the use of theoretical and applied concepts in transportation demand, mathematical programming, and network analysis, a set of procedures for modeling heavy truck traffic is formulated. Then, using life-cycle pavement concepts, a methodology for forecasting the financial effects of incremental heavy truck traffic is constructed. The impact assessment techniques are illustrated through the use of two real-world examples: (1) the location of a large grain subterminal elevator and (2) the abandonment of a railroad mainline. In each case, the concepts of freight demand forecasting, truck traffic simulation, and pavement deterioration analysis are applied to actual data and events.

In this compelling, readable narrative, Joe Sherman explores virtually every aspect of the Saturn project, America's biggest and most publicized industrial success of the last decade. Here is the whole story - Saturn's mysterious beginnings inside General Motors in 1982; the site hunt that involved 38 states and ended in Spring Hill, Tennessee; the plant's construction and the transfer of 5,000 UAW members to a historic Southern backwater; and finally the small car's triumph in the marketplace.

Telling the story through the standpoint of dozens of characters, from local farmers, to inspired assembly line workers, to `car smarts and gut feel' engineers, Sherman brings to life a very American story of renewal and growth, of great hope and soured expectations, of greed and lost opportunities. And he reveals that if the USA wants to produce high quality products that the world will want to buy, it must begin to adopt methods similar to those used in making the Saturn car.

Motor vehicles are prominent among the flows of exports and/or imports for Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United States, and these trade flows are heavily influenced by the basic relative competitiveness of the production processes for automotive manufacturing. In this book the authors analyze the factors that contributed to the comparative cost competitiviness of the four countries' automotive industries over the period 1961-1984 and disentangle the factors contributing to the Japanese cost and efficiency advantages. The authors provide estimates of comparative costs of automobile production (both short-run and long-run) and the sources of these cost differences, based on the econometric cost function methodology. An innovation is the careful treatment of capacity utilization, one of the most important sources of short-run cost and efficiency differences. This methodology is also used effectively in an analysis of the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact, a unique experiment in trade liberalization. Previous estimates of cost and efficiency differences using the plant inspection and comparison of company financial reports methodologies are also evaluated.

Peak-hour traffic congestion has become a major problem in most U.S. cities. In fact, a majority of residents in metropolitan and suburban areas consider congestion their most serious local problem. As citizens have become increasingly frustrated by repeated traffic delays that cost them money and waste time, congestion has become an important factor affecting local government policies in many parts of the nation. In this new book, Anthony Downs looks at the causes of worsening traffic congestion, especially in suburban areas, and considers the possible remedies. He analyzes the specific advantages and disadvantages of every major strategy that has been proposed to reduce congestion. In nontechnical language, he focuses on two central issues: the relationships between land-use and traffic flow in rapidly growing areas, and whether local policies can effectively reduce congestion or if more regional approaches are necessary. In rapidly growing parts of the country, congestion is worse than it was five or ten years ago. But Downs notes that the problem has apparently not yet become bad enough to stimulate effective responses. Neither government officials nor citizens seem willing to consider changing the behavior and public policies that cause congestion. To alleviate the problem, both groups must be prepared to make these fundamental changes. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Book of 1992 Co-published with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

'This book provides a very good history of the Los Angeles experience. Urban sociologist, among others, will find it an important addition to their shelf on urban social change.' --James R. Hudson, Contemporary Sociology

The result of an eight-year, international research study, this volume examines the methods used to promote occupational safety and health in the automotive industries of the United States, West Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Kenya. The author pays particular attention to the ways in which the broad national social, economic, political, and legal environments influence occupational safety and health activities and outcomes. The study also focuses on the differing degrees of cooperation and conflict exhibited among involved parties in the handling of occupational safety in different countries and companies. Based upon his findings, the author develops a contingency theory of labor-management-government cooperation and conflict that has broad implications for current debates about the need to develop more cooperative relationships within U.S. firms.

Following an introductory chapter that defines key concepts and presents an overview of the research design, Wokutch provides a historical overview of occupational safety and health in the United States for the reader unfamiliar with these issues. He goes on to describe occupational safety and health activities and relationships in the U.S. automotive industry, contrasting them with the handling of these issues in the five other countries under study. National work injury statistics are then compared and related to the economic and sociopolitical environment in which they occur. The next three chapters shift the focus of analysis to the firm and plant level and provide intra and inter-company comparisons. Finally, Wokutch discusses the conclusions and implications of his research and offers recommendations for the handling of occupational safety and health issues derived from his study. Students of labor and industrial relations as well as occupational safety and health and human resources managers will find Wokutch's study an important contribution to the business and management literature.

The essays in this volume explore the phenomenon of foreign industrial recruitment in terms of the experience of six mid-American states--Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee--in attracting Japanese automobile assembly facilities. This experience and the choice of plant sites by Mazda, Honda, Fuji-Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Nissan was invariably determined by multi-state negotiations and escalating state government incentive packages. To understand this phenomenon and its consequences, the essays in this volume sketch its comparative historical, economic, and legal dimensions; examine the dynamics of Japanese automobile investment in terms of the six site-specific studies; and then place these industrial recruitment experiences within a wider framework of federal-state relations and the prospects for a national industrial policy. Part I illuminates the background to and the comparative setting for the mid-American competition for Japanese automobile plants in the era of international corporate flight. Part II carefully probes the dynamics of development in terms of six site-specific studies. Finally, Part III places these six state industrial recruitment experiences within the wider framework of federal-state relations. This book makes informative reading for anyone interested in the automobile industry, Japanese-American trade polices, and federal-state relations.