Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet? (Perspectives)

Engineers plan transport systems, people use them. But the ways in which an engineer measures success – speed, journey time, efficiency – are often not the way that passengers think about a good trip. We are not cargo. We choose how and when to travel, influenced not only by speed and time but by habit, status, comfort, variety – and many other factors that engineering equations don’t capture at all.

As we near the practical, physical limits of speed, capacity and punctuality, the greatest hope for a brighter future lies in adapting transport to more human wants and needs. Behavioural science has immense potential to improve the design of roads, railways, planes and pavements – as well as the ways in which we use them – but only when we embrace the messier reality of transport for humans.

This is the moment. Climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and changing work–life priorities are shaking up long-held assumptions. There is a new way forward. This book maps out how to design transport for humans.

Pete Dyson joined Ogilvy’s Behavioural Science Practice in 2013 and in 2020 he was seconded to the UK Department for Transport as Principal Behavioural Scientist, tasked with the COVID-19 response, sustainable behaviour change and internal capability building. This book has been written in a personal capacity. Pete is also a semi-professional Ironman triathlete and in 2021 broke the record for the fastest non-stop cycle from Lands End to London. Next time he’ll take the train.

Rory Sutherland is the vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and the co-founder of its Behavioural Science Practice. He is author of Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense, writes the Spectator’s Wiki Man column, presents several series for Radio 4, serves on the advisory board of the Evolution Institute and is former president of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. His TED talks have been viewed more than 7 million times.