Narratives in Transport Research

Abstract

Social science disciplines are increasingly using narratives as means to develop theory and tools for real world applications. The aim of this review of literature is to show, from an interdisciplinary perspective, how narratives are used in transport research between 1990 and 2020. We perform a systematic literature review using the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Sixty-four peer-reviewed articles met the identification and eligibility criteria and were included in the analysis. We grouped the articles according to focus, and function into three categories: Elicit narratives (extracting narratives from collected data); explicit narratives (narratives used to create scenarios); and proposed narratives (recommended narratives). Our results indicate that narratives are not used extensively in transport research, but their use is increasing. Narrative methods are most often used in analysing the social impact of transport, policy, and planning benefits. We posit that if narratives were more widely adopted and circulated in the transport community, we might see sustainable change, and suggest that the narratives themselves be rigorously tested in future research for their ability to affect outcomes.