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The continued failure to put transport on a robust low carbon transition pathway calls for new approaches in policy and research. In studies of transport systems and patterns of mobility, established approaches to data collection, analysis and subsequent policy design have focused on capturing ‘typical’ conditions rather than identifying the potential for substantive change. This focus on the apparent aggregate stability of the transport regime has reproduced a belief in policy circles that our current travel patterns are largely fixed and therefore very difficult to alter, which in turn has resulted in an over reliance on implausible assumptions about the carbon reductions that can be achieved through technological improvements such as low emission vehicles.

This paper argues that there is potentially much greater adaptive capacity in the mobility system than currently allowed for. It illustrates this potential through the …