Although transport influences everyone and everything, it is not a subject that has been at the core of a movie very often. Still, there are some very interesting documentaries about transport and mobility out there that deserve your attention! I have wanted to write this article for a long time since these documentaries have inspired and helped me at many projects and occasions. Some of the pieces that I have listed below are hard to ‘stumble across’, I only found them because someone else recommended them to me or because they were referenced by other works. That is exactly why this nice overview has been made for you. I even personally reviewed every film from a transport point of view! The list is ordered from new to old. For now, documentary series have been excluded as they would deserve their own article. More suggestions are very welcome and can be sent to: mail@stefanvanlier.nl Enjoy!
Bikes vs. Cars (2015)
Duration: 1h30min
“Whatever we do or don’t do, it is going to be there for hundreds of years. So we need to decide: how do we want to life?”
The title of this documentary, as short as it may seem, exactly describes its content. This is a story about the constant battle between cars and bicycles for urban space. A battle that may be less high-profile in the Netherlands but so much the more in many other parts of the world. Especially the politics of urban mobility, which can become really nasty, are addressed in this docu. You really come to appreciate your ability to cycle, on safe dedicated infrastructure, after having seen this documentary!
The Human Scale (2012)
Duration: 1h23min
“When you turn a city into a place where you don’t walk, your kids don’t walk, you are raising generations that when they grow up, will not be human.”
I think this documentary is one of the reasons that I decided to specialize in mobility and transportation after doing a Bachelor in urban planning. If you had to watch only one of the documentaries in this list, it should be this one. Unfortunately, it is not (yet) available for free. The Human Scale features, among others, the influential urban designer and professor Jan Gehl who studied cities for over 40 years. You may think: ‘What does urban design have to do with transportation and vice versa?’. After seeing this documentary you can answer this question with: everything. A very big plus of ‘The Human Scale’ is that it focuses on cities all over the world: cities in Asia, Europe, America and new Zealand. The imagery is complemented by countless inspiring quotes. The message of the docu is especially aimed at us, engineers, we should never forget that we plan/design for humans. This is not as easy as you may think….
Revenge of the Electric Car (2011)
Duration: 1h30min
“In his final years Nikola Tesla was ridiculed for making outlandish claims, is Elon facing the same problem?”This film tells the story of how the electric car is currently resurrecting from ‘the dead’. Many people may not know that the first modern electric car was already launched in 1996. However, in the subsequent decades it was completely, and on purpose, pushed to the background again. This process is captured in another movie called ‘Who killed the Electric Car?’ (2006). In ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’ Nissan, General Motors (GM) and Tesla provide a unique access and insight into their newly erected electric vehicle development programs. However, right when the electric car finally started to gain momentum, the financial crisis strikes and Tesla and GM are driven to the verge of collapsing. This docu shows a personal account of how the CEO’s of the aforementioned company’s dealt with the huge task of rolling out the mass production of electric vehicles under these conditions. Very interesting!
Mayday Special: Crash of the Century (2003)
Duration: 1h25min
“Tenerife exposed a problem that had long existed in commercial air travel, the pilot was regarded and often regarded himself as god.”
Just to be clear: this is a horrible story. It is so horrendous that you can hardly believe that it actually happened. However, there is also so much to learn from the ‘Crash of the Century’. In this disaster that happened in 1977, two fully loaded Boeing 747’s collided on the runway of the airport of Tenerife. 583 people lost their live in the event which makes this the deadliest accident in aviation history. The involvement of a KLM plane in the crash made it even more astounding to me. The Tenerife accident is a perfect example of how a disaster is always caused by a critical chain of events that has to line up perfectly in order for it to happen. This documentary gives an insight into all of these events and their dramatic consequences. Contributing factors to the disaster range from weather conditions and human error to airport design and communication misunderstandings. The details will certainly amaze you.
The crash of the century has an important and lasting legacy in the historic development of aviation safety as well. It is one of the main reasons for the establishment of crew resource management and standardized terminology. Another interesting aspect of the Tenerife airport disaster is that the investigations into the causes of the disaster were performed by different authorities that, in the end, did not agree on the main contributing factors. Be aware that there are all kinds of documentaries about the Tenerife crash circulating on the internet that cannot possibly measure up to the quality of this one. If you are interested in the ‘technical side’ of the crash, you should make sure that you watch the Mayday special of 1 hour and 25 minutes, which includes a reconstruction of the events.
Taken for a Ride (1996)
Duration: 52min
“This is a story about how things got the way they are. Why sitting in traffic seems natural. Why our public transportation is the worst in the industrialized world. And why superhighways cut right through the hearts of our cities.”
Taken for a ride is a real classic. This 1996 documentary tells the story of how the automobile industry in the United States, led by General Motors (GM), systematically tore down public transport systems in US cities by means of (financial) undermining. In short, GM founded subsidiary bus operating and manufacturing companies that started to compete (subsidized by GM of course) with street cars. When monopoly had been achieved, services where slowly being downgraded causing a negative feedback loop. The story goes even further than this, but for that you will have to watch it. The documentary is based on 16 years of research, case law and interviews with many key people who were involved in the process. Now, you may think this is an anti-car documentary but in fact it is not. It calls for a complementary relationship between cars and mass transit. The best thing is that the docu can be watched for free on Youtube!
Lewis Mumford on the City, part 2: The City: Cars or People? (1963)
Duration: 28min
“If we are to save the heart of our cities, the choice is clear and urgent: does the city exist for people or for motorcars?”
This historic pearl can be watched for free here. Lewis Mumford, a historian and writer of the influential book ‘The city in History’, shares his vision on transportation. This documentary contains visions that can be seen as basic transportation planning knowledge today but it still is more than relevant for countless cities around the world. Furthermore, I was totally surprised to find an ode, there is no other way to put it, to the transportation system in the Netherlands in this American film. I quote: “And so the Netherlands has long practiced wise land planning and equally wise transportation planning. Waterways naturally were the heart of the transportation system in a land that is laced with rivers and canals. But when the railroad era began in the Netherlands, the railways supplemented not supplanted the waterways. Motor transport when it came in turn, supplemented not supplanted the railroads. All flourish side by side in a balanced and efficient network”.