Smart Mobility: Disrupting Transport Governance?

Abstract

Transport governance is dependent on, and works through, legally defined or socially accepted categories that are challenged by the technological and business disruptions that characterize smart mobility. This chapter explores the dynamic interactions between the categories of transport governance and new (disruptive) forms of mobility, using a framework that highlights the ways governance solutions are influenced by how problems are framed. The argument is made through two empirical cases – of car sharing and motorized (electric) personal mobility devices. Car sharing emerged quietly onto the transport landscape in Australia, and has been accommodated and facilitated by local government parking policies. In this case, the tools for governing smart mobility already existed, and became adaptable to new imperatives. Personal mobility devices (PMDs), battery-powered motorized devices designed to be used by an individual on footpaths or shared user paths, are neither common nor legal on many roads or footpaths. The process through which PMDs became regulated in the Australian state of Queensland is used to illustrate the ways in which ‘epistemic experimentation’ can challenge regulatory framings and foster the introduction of new forms of smart mobility. The chapter concludes that smart mobility both disrupts and confirms dominant framings of transport governance, especially in relation to automobility, and that further challenges will need to be met as autonomous vehicles become more widespread across transport infrastructure.

Citation

Dowling, R. (2018), "Smart Mobility: Disrupting Transport Governance?", Marsden, G. and Reardon, L. (Ed.) Governance of the Smart Mobility Transition, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 51-64. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78754-317-120181004