Title: SOCIAL IMPACTS OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT. RESEARCH REPORT
Abstract: The introduction of any new technology for any purpose has an effect on society. It may cause behaviour to change, it may alter the costs associated with different kinds of behaviour, it may be socially redistributive, it may alter the relative balance of power between the state and its citizens. These effects and people's expectations about them generate arguments about the relative merits of the technology, arguments that may effectively decide whether the technology is introduced. This report describes what is known about the potential effects of new technologies for traffic management, procedures to monitor and moderate these effects and recommends steps to take to deal in advance with at least some of the problems that may arise. The key problems encountered in the past have been the issues of privacy, social distributional equity and the economic impacts on businesses and individual locations. The present and the near future adds a special range of difficulties due to the large scale information gathering power of most of the new transport technologies, and the operational policies that could easily be created based on this information. While there are many benefits to be gained through the application of the new technologies, it is now essential that the operating authorities place special effort on clarifying the issues and the operational goals (and capabilities) to the public. The broad perception of a potential capacity to use the information and control systems in certain ways may easily become confused with the intention, and any major failure in communication could lead to a wide range of potentially beneficial applications becoming politically untenable to implement (A).
Publication Year: 1990
Publication Date: 1990-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
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