Juxtaposing Traffic Research and Social Computing

Abstract

Traffic is a topic within traffic planning and has also recently been included within the area of intelligent transportation systems . These fields have a long history and include various traditions with mostly negative views on road users’ social interaction. Chapter 2 reviews how the use of information technology has been conceived within such traffic research and transportation planning, basically to control and delimit social interaction. There are also marginal traditions within these areas, that understand social interaction as contingent and complex, which is an important and a necessary factor to account for when designing the cityscape and the roads. This chapter particularly focuses on an ambitious normative theory of design for public life in cities, developed by the famous the architect Kevin Lynch, which derives from research on the design of public roads, as well as specific design approaches—which have made very interesting efforts to promote and support complexity and diversity on the roads. This chapter also draws on the results of research in the area that can broadly be referred to as human–computer interaction. Here computer support for social interaction is explored, both for work and leisure. This chapter explores the turn from computers being a tool for control and surveillance in work-related practices, to perspectives where technologies are important means for supporting social interaction, collaboration, and community experiences of various kinds.