The technologising of transport had negative consequences for the ability of children to engage in unsupervised search and play in the urban environment. The severance of communities by fast moving, high volume motorised traffic coupled with urban policy which delocalised civic and community services from local neighbourhoods to urban centres and urban peripheries reduced the ability of children to gain acquaintance with adult activities and roles through normal socialisation processes.
The technologising of information provision enables children to become reacquainted with the world of adult activity in conditions of safe search. Virtual access to health facilities, workplaces and the repertoire of civic administrative activities can now be had by children without disruption to the normal running and functioning of these environments.
The provision of email accounts for children as part of civic development and modern educational practice - Glasgow is to provide all its children with email accounts - opens up opportunity for the future electorate to gain skill in bargaining and participating in the development of better quality of life for their peer group now. The new distributed character of the technology opens up new questions around childhood and citizen participation.
To anchor the discussion in transport, issues of the transport awareness of youth and the transport circumstances of youth are major matters for policy discussion. Reducing the contribution of the 'school run' to congestion is an important policy measure if congestion is to be tackled; in order to change this now customary pattern acceptable alternative transport arrangements for children and youths have to be made.
One technology which is important in enhancing the safety of children in the transport environment is the mobile phone. Certain schools have permitted the possession of phones on school space in the recognition that these provide a safety and synchronisation system between the household and the child. A major use of the technology by children is, however, that of contact between peers - new contact/distance relationships hold between school children. These patterns could be harnessed in virtual homework clubs for example.
The provision of schoolchildren with email addresses provides new equipment for the development of identity and continuity of identity in the context of friendship relationships which would historically have been dispersed over a life time.
The purpose of this page is to explore these new relationships between telematics, transport and childhood.
On line articles and reports:
Useful links and data paths:
Electronic play:
The walking bus: a non-motorised option on the school run
Despite that attention the walking bus has received as a 'green' solution to school hour congestion, the redesign of pavement space to accompany such travel behaviour changes has received little attention.
Margaret Grieco,
Professor of Transport and Society,
Transport Research Institute, Napier University,
66 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5BR
e-mail at m.grieco@napier.ac.uk