Transport acceleration is better measured by throughput than by top speeds

Evidence

Even though there can be no doubt that here too there have been tremendous increases since the industrial revolution, it is much more difficult to establish precise values. The most exact measure for the form of social acceleration connected to the acceleration of transport would be the quantity of goods and persons that can be transported per unit of time and their average velocity. As we will see in the next section, these two values sometimes stand in a negative relationship to each other: the more persons that simultaneously wish to move, the lower their average speed if congestion effects occur as a result of overloaded infrastructures. This explains why the average speed of several forms of transport (for instance, urban traffic) seems to sink rather than climb. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 249

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Significant transport acceleration preceded steam engines and telegraphs by decades — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 303; Technical speed-up differs categorically from the acceleration of society proper — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 261; Velocity response is the convenient quantity for impulse power (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Technical speed-up differs categorically from the acceleration of society proper #expands (0.78) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 261
• Significant transport acceleration preceded steam engines and telegraphs by decades #expands (0.75) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 303
• Perceived speed depends on the observer’s own chosen scale of measurement #qualifies (0.75)
• Velocity response is the convenient quantity for impulse power #corroborates (0.70)