Designing Transport for Humans, Not Econs
Pete Dyson and Rory Sutherland
When we move things, rather than people, around efficiently, no feelings need to be taken into account. Planning can be mathematically optimized without any consideration of psychology. For centuries, transport has been a battle of ideologies: the utilitarians versus the romantics. One side strives to optimize journeys against quantifiable measures while the other nostalgically recounts the joys of travel. We aim for a more balanced position. We argue that society’s present focus on utilitarian