The Boltzmann transport equation and related approaches are important tools in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics due to their extreme simplicity. These approximations work well in systems where the "interesting" information is immediately (after just one collision) scrambled up into subtle correlations, which essentially restricts them to rarefied gases. The Boltzmann transport equation has been found to be very useful in simulations of electron transport in lightly doped semiconductors (in transistors), where the electrons are indeed analogous to a rarefied gas.