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Making Passengers Work: Infrastructural Labor and Exclusion in Mid-Twentieth-Century Stockholm's Public Transit
Technology and Culture
|May 11, 2026
Summary
Rationalization in public transit redistributed labor, intensifying conductors' work and enrolling passengers in new routines. This created uneven mobility access, embedding social differentiation into transit operations.
Area of Science:
- Science and Technology Studies
- Sociology of Technology
- Transportation History
Background:
- Histories of technology often overlook the interplay between workers and users.
- Rationalization efforts in public transit have historically focused on operational efficiency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze how rationalization in public transit redistributed labor between conductors and passengers.
- To examine the social implications of efficiency-driven reforms in mass transit systems.
Main Methods:
- Historical analysis of Stockholm's fixed-conductor system in the 1940s.
- Application of the concept of infrastructural labor.
Main Results:
- Rationalization reforms intensified conductors' work.
- Passengers were enrolled in routinized payment and boarding practices.
- Uneven mobility access resulted, privileging compliant passengers and excluding others.
Conclusions:
- Efficiency in mass transit is a political process that reorganizes rights and responsibilities.
- Infrastructural labor embeds social differentiation into everyday transit operations.
- The study reframes efficiency as a mechanism for social stratification within public transportation.
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