Abstract
The advent of fully automated road vehicles is a topic currently getting attention in the field of transport as well as futures research: the technology is assumed to radically change the way we move in the future as well as to expand and differentiate existing mobility concepts. Still, the implications of automated driving are first and foremost discussed from a technological point of view and uncertainty about how this transition might take place remains. The embedding in the system of automobility respectively the transport system as a whole, currently lacks analytical as well as empirical examination. In our paper, we will discuss the topic in relation to three possible sociotechnical transition scenarios: (1) evolution, (2) revolution and (3) transformation. We will extrapolate different scenarios of automated driving based on current technical, economic, infrastructural, spatial, and transport developments and discuss its consequences for the transport system and mobility concepts.
Highlights
The advent of fully automated road vehicles—meaning cars that drive without the need of a human driver—is currently a much discussed topic
While at present uncertainty remains about when, how, or if fully automated vehicles will be implemented into our transport system and complement or replace conventional road vehicles, we are able to identify scenarios, based on current developments and deviate possible and maybe even radical implications that display significance on different levels or for different elements
While the evolutionary scenario seems to lead to a slow transformation or reconfiguration of the system on the regime level without changing current mobility patterns [cf. 31, pp. 335], and the transformative scenario might imply a different regime where multimodal practices replace the predominance of the privately owned car, the direction of the revolutionary scenario remains rather nebulous—in part, because it is not clear yet what the objectives and the scope of the dominant players are
Summary
The advent of fully automated road vehicles—meaning cars that drive without the need of a human driver—is currently a much discussed topic. The excitement about the technology in the making seems tremendous—we are confronted with media reports on ‘machine-cars that consume drastically less fuel’ [3] or ‘cities with less congestion and noise’ [4], ‘people that will stay individually mobile into old age’ [5] and ‘eras ending where only owning an automobile represented freedom and mobility’ [6] Statements like these pick up on different levels and elements (e.g. the technological development of the vehicle itself, the traffic and infrastructure system, potential users of the future technology or cultural aspects) that are all involved in the genesis of fully automated driving.
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