(Re)Producing Transport Systems: Uber, Driverless Technology, and the Modern City

This paper explores potential governance responses to driverless automobility by considering how the transportation system is reproduced by agents – travelers, regulators, companies and other groups - through a case study of Uber, a taxi service that utilizes riders’ global positioning system (GPS)-enabled smartphones. The authors first introduce observations about the Uber case and review the major players involved with facilitating or hindering adoption of the new service. The authors then identify the various actors involved with and affected by another technology enabled transport, autonomous vehicles, to assess how the institutional structures of this actor network conflict or complement one another. The framework of this paper moves away from a pre-determined view of the influence of technological innovation while also rejecting the idea that transport systems are simply an aggregate of individual decisions. As argued elsewhere, an overreliance on individualistic frameworks in transport poses major challenges for promoting sustainable practices (2). While individual decisions about transport behavior are important, they are overwhelmingly a function of the larger options available to individuals; such options are determined by the network of actors and institutions that produce the transport system. The production of a transport system is a useful way to consider how new driverless technology can be leveraged by various actors. Instead of asking how the technology will change the system through an unknown causality (i.e. invisible hand), it rests agency squarely with the institutions and actors involved with developing, funding and regulating the new technology. How the transport system is produced – i.e. the actors involved and how they conflict or complement one another – is key both for creating a viable and sustainable transport system and for considering how to bring change to existing systems that may not serve the goals that are desired.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABC10 Strategic Management.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Davidson, Adam
  • Fischer, Lauren Ames
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2015-1-11 to 2015-1-15
• Date: 2015

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p
• Monograph Title: TRB 94th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Cities; Development; Global Positioning System; Institutional issues; Intelligent vehicles; Smartphones; Sustainable transportation; Taxi services; Technological innovations
• Identifier Terms: Uber
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning; I90: Vehicles;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01557077
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 15-5395
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 17 2015 9:03AM