News Releases

UWI Professor urges Ethics in Transportation

For Release Upon Receipt - March 9, 2023

St. Augustine


 

 Professor Surendra Arjoon, Professor of Business and Professional Ethics at The University of the West Indies St Augustine campus

 

The UWI St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago. Thursday 9 March, 2023- Surendra Arjoon, a professor of Business and Professional Ethics at The University of the West Indies St Augustine campus, has delivered a seminar to European transportation scientists on the ethical issues and challenges in transport and traffic management.

 Professor Arjoon gave the seminar at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, at the University of Dresden in Germany. This faculty is the largest in Germany, with more than 200 research scientists, 20 professors, 7 institutes, 1100 students, and 30 laboratories. The activity took place under the Erasmus Staff Mobility Teaching and Training initiative between The UWI and the University of Dresden.

 Arjoon argued that ethics should be taken more seriously in transportation-related areas such as, the interface between humanity and technology, safety expectations, power dynamics among stakeholders, environmental justice, and sustainability.

 “Although everyone is dependent on transportation in some form or fashion, its ethical considerations have lagged considerably behind its technological developments, causing much ill-conceived and unforeseen consequences.”

 He added that a growing number of dedicated textbooks and journals demonstrate an interest in the field of Ethics in Transportation although, there is apparently only one university course in this area.

 Professor Arjoon pointed to the 2020 European Union commissioned report on specific ethical issues associated with Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) on road safety, data ethics, privacy, fairness, ease of explanation, and responsibility. He states this a good starting point but lacks a coherent framework and overlooks key elements in theory and practice. Technologies, regulations, and even institutional cultural shifts are not enough to curb unethical practices within organisations involved in transportation policy and management or other fields.

 He believes that there are misunderstandings about the meaning of ethics which is more than being guided by codes or principles. It requires addressing risk gaps which have largely been ignored in the literature and in practice.

 “Relying on codes, personal beliefs, or corporate values”, he said, “has clearly not been effective given the continued cases of fraud and corruption by individuals and in organisations. Before we fix institutions and remedy society’s ills, we first need to fix people through the acquisitions of virtues that are habitual and firm dispositions to close the human ecological gap”.

 End

  About The University of the West Indies

 The UWI has been and continues to be a pivotal force in every aspect of Caribbean development; residing at the centre of all efforts to improve the well-being of people across the region for the past 75 years.

 From a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948, The UWI is today an internationally respected, global university with near 50,000 students and five campuses: Monain Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave Hillin Barbados, Five IslandsinAntigua and Barbuda and itsOpen Campus, and global centres in partnership with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe.

 The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Sport. As the Caribbean’s leading university, it possesses the largest pool of Caribbean intellect and expertise committed to confronting the critical issues of our region and wider world.

 The UWI has been consistently ranked among the top universities globally by the most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education (THE). The UWI is the only Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists since its debut in the rankings in 2018. In addition to its leading position in the Caribbean in the World University Rankings, it is also in the top 25 for Latin America and the Caribbean and the top 100 global Golden Age universities (between 50 and 80 years old).  The UWI is also featured among the leading universities on THE’s Impact Rankings for its response to the world’s biggest concerns, outlined in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Good Health and Wellbeing; Gender Equality and Climate Action.

 2023 marks The UWI’s 75th anniversary. The Diamond jubilee milestone themed “UWI at 75. Rooted. Ready. Rising.” features initiatives purposely designed and aligned to reflect on the past, confront the present, and articulate plans for the future of the regional University.

 Learn more at www.uwi.edu  

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