Chapter 1: Overview of Urban Transport and the Environment

Human mobility was extremely limited up until the Industrial Revolution. On the level of everyday activity, mobility consisted of going to the fields to work and carrying the crops to the market. Trips were limited in terms of both frequency and distance. The power for land transportation came exclusively from human legs and from horses, while water transportation depended on wind power for sailing or muscle power for rowing. Saitz (1979) estimates that human mobility in terms of the number of trips was around 1.1 per day (Figure 1.1.1). The daily distance covered in such ways could not far exceed 10 kilometres. Considering in addition that total world population in the 1500s was roughly 500million (UN, 1999), equivalent to one twelfth of the total today (UN, 1998), the overall volume of transport was very small, and had only a minimal impact on the environment.