A Laboratory Put to the Test: Experimenting with Self-Driving Cars and Their Infrastructures

• In Event: Co-creating or Testing Scalable Societies? Test Beds and Living Labs as Emerging Innovation Policy Instruments - I

Abstract

Experiments have become important resources in innovation policy and practices. This paper analyzes the boundary between the entities being put to the test and the infrastructure meant to serve as testing platforms. In doing so, it questions the social organization and the economic valuation practices that experiments explicitly designed as co-creation initiatives are associated with.
We focus on the example of Autocampus, a local initiative in the Toulouse area meant to develop self-driving technologies. Autocampus gathers the local public university and a consortium of private companies supported by the public administration. It consists in turning parts of the university campus into test fields. Using interviews conducted with the stakeholders involved in this initiative, we show that the actors involved problematize the nature of the infrastructure that is necessary to conduct the tests. The university aims to further develop this infrastructure as additional tests are conducted and is wary about potential financial risks. Private companies initially envisioned testing prototypes that could then be scaled-up, but have had to re-adapt their technologies to the particularities of the testing grounds.
Thus, the infrastructure is not a passive laboratory but is itself being experimented with. We argue (1) that the infrastructures needed for tests are crucial components of co-creation, and (2) that the uncertainty about what is/will be tested and what serves/will serve as a platform for tests creates tension in the practical conduct of co-creation initiatives.

Authors

• Mathieu Baudrin, CSI-Ecole Des Mines De Paris

• Brice Laurent, Ecole Des Mines De Paris