President’s Page
Dear colleagues,
The program of our 10th Annual Conference in Madrid is now online: https://t2m.org/program/
History Matters: Our anniversary conference is focussing on “Intermodal Mobilities”. It will uncover intermodal transport, traffic and mobility as a cultural practice, which partly got lost in the times of individual motorisation. At least for urban and regional transport, car and truck driving unlearned intermodal techniques of mobility. The desired development of intermodal mobilities should make use of our historical analysis of changing habits and practices of Intermodality. Come to Madrid to discuss the history and future of intermodal transport; – and to meet old and new colleagues, scholars, friends in the vibrant Spanish capital.
At the conference, we will look back on the first ten years of T2M and the situation of our still new and emerging interdiscipline of (historical) transport and mobility studies. The number of workshops, conferences and research projects is much more rapidly growing than the number of academic positions, chairs and programs. What can we do to push for the latter? I am looking forward to our strategy discusssions in Madrid.
History Matters : In October 2012, the EU funded research consortium « NEAR2 » about railway connections between Europe and (East) Asia will start, coordinated by Dr. Maria Boile, Hellenic Institute for Transportation (HIT, CERTH).
Our Center for Technology and Society just started to coordinate an EU-funded research consortium on the future of transport and transport industry up to 2050 (RACE2050). We will use an historical approach to understand foresight activities and develop scenarios for the next 40 years of transport and transport industry.
Electromobility is emerging to fundamentally change urban and regional transport, at the moment still on two and not four wheels. There are already more than 120 millian e-bikes on Chinas roads. In Germany, last year more than 300.000 Pedelecs were sold, while less than 5.000 electrical cars are on road in Germany. It is our chance and duty as historical and social science mobility experts to accompany this fundamental change with our expertise. Madrid is the next chance to do so.
I am very much looking forward to seeing you there.
Best wishes, Hans Dienel
Studying Euro-Asia-Railway connections with my son Raban in the Turkish Railway Museum close to Izmir
Enjoying my e-mini in Berlin
