Telecommunication and Travel: The Case for Complementarity

Abstract

The potential of telecommunications to substitute for travel has long been appreciated. Indeed, such potential has often been not just a later realization but an integral impetus behind the development of the technology. Early communication devices such as jungle tom-tom drums, trumpet alarms, smoke signals and flashing lanterns were surely conceived precisely to replace the need for a physical messenger. The same cannot necessarily be said of the more recent (1876) invention of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell's own initial vision of its uses seemed to be more along the lines of broadcast radio than personal communication, while the President of Western Union dismissed it as an "electrical toy", and the Chief Engineer of the British Post Office in 1879 sniffed that the "superabundance of messengers, errand boys, and things of that kind" in Great Britain obviated the need for the telephone there (Dilts 1941). However, it did not take long for speculation to begin about the potential of the new technology to eliminate travel. Albertson (1980) refers to a letter to the editor of the Times published May 10, 1879 suggesting that the telephone could provide relief from travel for harried businessmen