Toward green mobility: the evolution of transport

Hey guys, i found something interesting here about the physical mobility.

"We envision a transport system producing zero emissions and sparing the surface landscape, while people on average range hundreds of kilometers daily. We believe this prospect of 'green mobility' is consistent in general principles with historical evolution. We lay out these general principles, extracted from widespread observations of human behavior over long periods, and use them to explain past transport and to project the next 50 to 100 years. Our picture emphasizes the slow penetration of new technologies of transport adding speed in the course of substituting for the old ones in terms of time allocation. We discuss serially and in increasing detail railroads, cars, aeroplanes, and magnetically levitated trains (maglevs)." from: http://phe.rockefeller.edu/green_mobility/
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Understanding mobility begins with the biological: humans are territorial animals and instinctively try to maximize territory. The reason is that territory equates with opportunities and resources.

However, there are constraints to range -- essentially, time and money. since ever and in contemporary societies spanning the full range of economic development, people average about 1 hour per day traveling.

Transport matters for the human environment. Its performance characteristics shape settlement patterns. Its infrastructures transform the landscape. It consumes about one-third of all energy in a country such as the United States. And transport emissions strongly influence air quality. Thus, people naturally wonder whether we have a chance for 'green mobility', transport systems embedded in the environment so as to impose minimal disturbance.