Reshaping Stavanger? Autonomous Buses, Intelligent Infrastructures and the Sociology of Expectations in Urban Transport

• In Event: Autonomous Vehicles - II: Visions and Imaginaries for Autonomous Systems

Abstract

This paper addresses the role of visions and expectations in development and implementation of new technologies in urban transport systems. By studying work to transform transport infrastructures, technologies, and practices, we ask how involved actors expect infrastructures and urban organization to be influenced by new modes of mobility. How are ongoing urban planning processes influenced by expectations relating to technology development? Are new modes of mobility expected to reshape digital, physical, and societal infrastructures, or to extend existing, possibly unsustainable settlement and travel patterns? Drawing upon empirical evidence from studying pilot projects in the greater Stavanger region in Norway, we address these questions.

In order to develop strategies for meeting the region's goal of a net-zero growth in private car transport despite population growth, the regional ‘mobility provider’ has conducted multiple pilots: An autonomous bus running in regular traffic, algorithm-planned bus routes, and a computer-simulated intelligent transport system. Such projects, as well as Stavanger’s enrolment in the smart city movement, makes Stavanger an interesting site for researching the co-production of the built environment and AI. Our interviews highlight tensions between expectations held by industry actors, companies, and at county and municipality levels. Every expectation cannot be realized, raising the question of deliberation: with the prospect of a potentially radical reshaping of the built environment through automatons and algorithms, whose voices are heard, and whose are omitted? The paper contributes to the greater STS literature on expectations, highlighting how infrastructures are shaped as much by technological expectations as by existing technology.

Author

• Bård Torvetjønn Haugland, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU)