Habitable Cars: the organisation of collective private transport

It’s the morning rush hour, dad sits in the passenger seat consulting his Blackberry, the three children in the back tease him, trying to divert his attention. Meantime mum is asking each child in turn whether they have the correct things in their bags for the school day ahead. Four hundred miles away, two pharmacists negotiate their way toward a motorway exit, while one explains to the other a series of calculations to be made in relation to a drug routine. It’s the end of the day one hundred miles further north, and five members of a hill running club are squeezed into a Clio Winding along country roads, they discuss the race route that is their destination. Investigating these diverse situations of collective private travel has been the objective of the Habitable Cars project.

The project has taken a number of novel perspectives on car travel:

• Considering the ways in which driving is socially organised rather than a matter of individual abilities
• Looking at the myriad everyday activities that take place in the car during journeys when one or more passengers are present
• Examining the nature of formal car-sharing relationships alongside other arrangements for collective car travel (e.g. families, friends and sports clubs)
• Providing detailed descriptions of the conversational and gestural practices involved in travelling by car

To gather data the project recruited twenty cars, a mixture of car-sharing work colleagues, families, friends, sports clubs and city car club members. Each participating group was interviewed, travelled with for a week (wherever practical), and each vehicle video recorded during at least six typical journeys. 660 clips were edited out of the 100 hours plus of footage for more detailed study using conversation and video analytic approaches.

It’s the morning rush hour, dad sits in the passenger seat consulting his Blackberry, the three children in the back tease him, trying to divert his attention. Meantime mum is asking each child in turn whether they have the correct things in their bags for the school day ahead. Four hundred miles away, two pharmacists negotiate their way toward a motorway exit, while one explains to the other a series of calculations to be made in relation to a drug routine. It’s the end of the day one hundred miles further north, and five members of a hill running club are squeezed into a Clio Winding along country roads, they discuss the race route that is their destination. Investigating these diverse situations of collective private travel has been the objective of the Habitable Cars project.
The project has taken a number of novel perspectives on car travel:
• Considering the ways in which driving is socially organised rather than a matter of individual abilities
• Looking at the myriad everyday activities that take place in the car during journeys when one or more passengers are present
• Examining the nature of formal car-sharing relationships alongside other arrangements for collective car travel (e.g. families, friends and sports clubs)
• Providing detailed descriptions of the conversational and gestural practices involved in travelling by car
To gather data the project recruited twenty cars, a mixture of car-sharing work colleagues, families, friends, sports clubs and city car club members. Each participating group was interviewed, travelled with for a week (wherever practical), and each vehicle video recorded during at least six typical journeys. 660 clips were edited out of the 100 hours plus of footage for more detailed study using conversation and video analytic approaches.

Theoretical developments
Recent theory in human geography has emphasized the importance of the non-cognitive elements of ordinary social action. The project applied this theory in the domain of driving, usually considered to be rooted in cognition. It considered the practical reasoning exhibited in driving, revealing actions that are socially organised rather than mentally derived.
Cognitive theories of navigation have fixed intelligence in the concept of the mental map. The project revealed how navigation is bound up with the logics of other social roles and are thus never only navigational. Moreover it considered how we find our way through familiar roadscapes when we are commuting or doing the school run, both are forms of practical reasoning which have suffered from being equated with navigation through unfamiliar environments.
Side-stepping commonly reported incidences of road rage, the project documented and theorised a series of other expressive practices and responses, both between drivers and also, just as importantly, between passengers and driver. Car journeys were notable, sometimes remarkable, for the depth and profound nature of topics raised, and their therapeutic affects. Indeed, theorising passengers’ roles in car travel was a key project achievement. The project considered specific variations of the driver-passenger relationship produced by formal ‘car sharing’ arrangements. These relationships revealed the occasion of shared journeying as a significant setting for airing daily troubles and successes, and thus surprising levels of intimacy.
Empirical work
Driving/Passengering
While many studies of driving begin with the assumption that the primary task is carried out by one person – the driver – our study revealed the subtle and explicit ways in which front-seat passengers are involved the work of driving the car. While there were no instances of passengers physically grabbing the steering wheel, we did have ‘competent’ and ‘involved’ front-seat passengers attending to the events occurring on the road ahead. Depending on circumstance, while ‘warning’ or ‘noticing’ events happening proximate to the car, front-seat passengers produced audible intakes of breath, pointed at other cars, shook their head, and more. They were, in several senses, informally assuming the role of co-pilot; a comparable arrangement exists in rally driving. Of course, ordinary driving is not quite so demanding, allowing front-seat passengers to drop in and out of direct involvement. We found passengers taking on tasks that although peripheral to the handling or road control of the car were still contributory to ease while driving; such as wayfinding, checking the time, tuning into traffic news etc. Driver and passenger coordinate their involvement in the driving through a dialogue of talk and gestures.
The project documented the interactional aspects of negotiating multiple traffic situations. These variously require the initiation and sequential organisation of specific courses of action, and responses to the actions of other drivers. As well as attending to the production and recognition of movements in traffic – such as overtaking, tailgating, nudging into a gap etc – consideration was given to the driver’s and passenger’s coordinated (and uncoordinated) involvement in monitoring car manoeuvres, assessing them and advising one another.
Displacing/Emplacing
The project considered the displacement of a host of domestic and social activities into the car. A few examples will be indicative: planning, trouble-telling, complaining, advising, teasing, playing games. The car offers us a window-view into an inexhaustable collection of ordinary social practices. So fruitful was the process of data collection that we have only yet scratched the surface of the empirical material amassed. Thus far, the phenomena we have pursued are how sportspeople discussing tactics and plan for participation, how car sharers deliver bad news to one another, and how colleagues tell their troubles at the end of the day etc.
Shaping in-car conversation
Sustained analysis has highlighted the ways in which car travellers accomplish diverse activities, and also how travellers are affected by the specific situation “in-car”. As such, the project has investigated what kind of topics are recognised by travellers as productive for discussion during journeys, how the timing of conversations can be shaped according to the greater timings of the journey undertaken, and also how conversation corresponds to the rhythms of the road. Finally, its side-by-side seating design requires the re-arrangement of straightforward face-to-face conversation. Consequently, subtleties of facial gesture and glance are supplemented and replaced by head-turning.