Hypermobility (travel)
Encyclopedia
The term hypermobility in regard to travelers arose around 1980 and is a concept that has increased in useage since the early 1990s: Damette (1980); Hepworth and Ducatel (1992); Whitelegg (1993); Lowe (1994); van der Stoep (1995); Shields (1996); Cox (1997); Adams (1999); Khisty and Zeitler (2001); Gössling
et al. (2009); and Mander & Randles (2009). The term is widely credited as having been coined in Adams (1999), but apart from the title it says no more than "[t]he term hypermobility is used in this essay to suggest that it may be possible to have too much of a good thing."
Hypermobile travelers are "highly mobile individuals" who take "frequent trips, often over great distances." They "account for a large share of the overall kilometres travelled, especially by air." These people contribute significantly to the overall amount of airmiles flown within a given society. Although concerns over hypermobility apply to several modes of transport, the environmental impact of aviation and especially its greenhouse gas emissions (which have a leveraged climate effect because they occur at altitude) have brought particular focus on flying.
Although the amount of time people have spent in motion has remained constant since 1950, the shift from feet and bicycles to cars and planes has increased the speed of travel fivefold. This results in the twin effects of wider and shallower regions of social activity around each person (further exacerbated by electronic communication which is a form of virtual mobility), and a degradation of the social and physical environment brought about by the high speed traffic (as documented by Donald Appleyard
).
The changes are brought about locally due to the use of cars and motorways, and internationally by aeroplanes. Some of the threats of hypermobility include:
Widespread internet
use is seen as a contributory factor towards hypermobility due to the increased ease which it enables travel to be desired and organized.
Some governments promote private hypermobility through their road-building policies, and public hypermobility though mass transit.. Punitive car taxation has been proposed to limit the environmental impact of hypermobility.
Stefan Gössling
Stefan Gössling, born 1970, is a Professor Professor of Tourism at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden. Dr...
et al. (2009); and Mander & Randles (2009). The term is widely credited as having been coined in Adams (1999), but apart from the title it says no more than "[t]he term hypermobility is used in this essay to suggest that it may be possible to have too much of a good thing."
Hypermobile travelers are "highly mobile individuals" who take "frequent trips, often over great distances." They "account for a large share of the overall kilometres travelled, especially by air." These people contribute significantly to the overall amount of airmiles flown within a given society. Although concerns over hypermobility apply to several modes of transport, the environmental impact of aviation and especially its greenhouse gas emissions (which have a leveraged climate effect because they occur at altitude) have brought particular focus on flying.
Although the amount of time people have spent in motion has remained constant since 1950, the shift from feet and bicycles to cars and planes has increased the speed of travel fivefold. This results in the twin effects of wider and shallower regions of social activity around each person (further exacerbated by electronic communication which is a form of virtual mobility), and a degradation of the social and physical environment brought about by the high speed traffic (as documented by Donald Appleyard
Donald Appleyard
Donald Appleyard was an urban designer and theorist, teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.Born in England, Appleyard studied first architecture, and later urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduation he taught at MIT for six years,and later at Berkley...
).
The changes are brought about locally due to the use of cars and motorways, and internationally by aeroplanes. Some of the threats of hypermobility include:
- more polarisation between rich and poor
- more anonymous and less convivial communities
- less cultural variation
- increased risk to pedestrians
- reduced health and fitness
Widespread internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
use is seen as a contributory factor towards hypermobility due to the increased ease which it enables travel to be desired and organized.
Some governments promote private hypermobility through their road-building policies, and public hypermobility though mass transit.. Punitive car taxation has been proposed to limit the environmental impact of hypermobility.