Urban governance and autonomous vehicles

Abstract

The development and deployment of autonomous vehicles is inseparable from the questions about the future development of cities. Urban governance is vital in ensuring the viability, effectiveness and safety of the next generation urban mobility services, and various roles taken on by cities are pivotal for the creation and maintenance of markets for autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we examine how urban governance approaches for autonomous vehicles development and deployment in the United States are evolving within multi-scalar regulatory contexts. We conceptualize the various types of engagements by cities through four different roles: city as regulator, mediator, data catalyst, and promoter. These categories are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, and are intended to support the development of appropriate models as cities continue to evaluate options for their urban mobility futures. We present two illustrative examples, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts, to analyze how cities vary in their approaches to the new urban mobility sector. These are two of the leading municipalities in the United States on autonomous vehicle testing and deployment, and their experiences are helpful to elucidating the variety of regulatory contexts, approaches to governance, and potential outcomes.