Fields of Transport Geography

There are twelve key concepts related to transport geography, among which transportation networks, transportation nodes and transportation demand are at its core. They are closely linked to economic, political, regional, historical and population geography, among others. Several other concepts, such as regional planning, information systems, operations research and location theory are commonly used in transport geography, notably as tools and methods for the spatial analysis of transportation. At a wider level, links exist with several major fields of science including natural sciences, mathematics and economics. Indeed, like geography, transport geography is at the intersection of several concepts and methods initially developed outside the discipline that have been adapted to its particular interests and concerns.

The intersection, or the triangulation, of three concepts defines a general field of investigation. For instance, if one was to investigate transportation terminals, this subject would likely be at the intersection of the concepts of transportation networks, nodes and demand. A transport terminal being an infrastructure part of a transport network that is fulfilling a demand from an origin to a destination. For a more general and complex concept, it is possible to expand the triangulation and include additional fields. Evaluating the environmental impacts of a transport project requires a triangulation of environmental studies, transportation systems and spatial statistics and models.

The above figure is not an exhaustive overview of all the fields related to transport geography, but a fair approximation of those involved and their relationships.