Travel Blending: Whither Regulation? DONNA FERRETTI and JENNIFER BONHAM, University of South Australia Abstract Travel blending, as a form of travel demand management, has in recent times been celebrated by transport planners as a means of shaping travel behaviour without regulation. Accordingly, travel blending is said to overcome the problems of the state bureaucracy imposing its will upon the individual’s travel choices. In this paper we introduce a Foucauldian analysis to the field of transport in order to examine the assertions made by proponents of travel blending that they are not exercising power in the course of shaping travel behaviour. In particular, we use recent elaborations of Foucault’s work on governmentality to explore the ways in which the sites, subjects and objects of travel are discursively constituted within travel blending thereby enabling new ways of intervening upon the travelling subject. We suggest that a governmentality approach not only provides a fertile means of investigating transport but also reveals travel blending as a regulatory practice serving to structure the individual’s field of action. KEY WORDS travel blending; governmentality; transport planning; power; travel diary; travelling subjects Introduction Travel blending, a form of travel demand man- agement celebrated by transport planners as a new way of shaping travel behaviour without regulation, is said to overcome the problems of the State bureaucracy imposing its will upon the individual’s travel choices (Rooney, 1998; Ampt and Rooney, 1998). Using recent elaborations of Foucault’s notion of governmentality, this paper examines the practice of travel blending, drawing attention to the relations of power which inhere within it and the ways in which travel blending may be seen as a program serving to structure the individual traveller’s field of action. In doing so, we emphasise, rather than discount, the regu- latory potential of travel blending and examine the precise way in which travel blending breaks with traditional planning and demand manage- ment techniques that involve ‘top-down’ inter- ventions by the government. Initially developed as part of Sydney’s Clean Air 2000 Project 1 , travel blending has recently been applied with great gusto in a number of suburban settings in Adelaide, most notably the inner eastern suburbs of Rose Park and Dulwich. Here consultants have been engaged by a State government agency (Transport SA) to im- plement travel blending with the specific aim being to change the way in which people use their cars. Essentially, travel blending is con- cerned with changing people’s travel behaviour in environmentally, economically and socially optimal ways. It seeks to reduce car use and minimise the array of negative effects associ- ated with excessive levels of private vehicular travel. It has arisen, in part, out of the limited 302 Australian Geographical Studies • November 2001 • 39(3):302-312