Impacts of Information Technology on Personal Travel and Commercial Vehicle Operations: Research Challenges and Opportunities

Travel, like many other aspects of daily life, is being transformed by the information technology revolution. Accessibility can no longer be measured only in terms of travel time, distance or generalized travel cost. Information technology gives people virtual accessibility to a rapidly growing range of activities. E-commerce has become a catalyst for structural changes in the freight transportation industry and is changing where freight moves, the size of typical shipments and the time within which goods must be delivered. In this paper we explore some of the potential effects of information technology on transportation, both personal and freight.