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Engineering Social Justice into Traffic Control for Self-Driving Vehicles?
Abstract
The convergence of computing, sensing, and communication technology will soon permit large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. This will in turn permit a radical transformation of traffic control technology. This paper makes a case for the importance of addressing questions of social justice in this transformation, and sketches a preliminary framework for doing so. We explain how new forms of traffic control technology have potential implications for several dimensions of social justice, including safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equal access. Our central focus is on efficiency and equal access as desiderata for traffic control design. We explain the limitations of conventional traffic control in meeting these desiderata, and sketch a preliminary vision for a next-generation traffic control tailored to address better the demands of social justice. One component of this vision is cooperative, hierarchically distributed self-organization among vehicles. Another component of this vision is a priority system enabling selection of priority levels by the user for each vehicle trip in the network, based on the supporting structure of non-monetary credits.
... A social justice approach which goes beyond driving decisions in unavoidable accidents has been discussed by Mladenovic und McPherson, who argue on the level of road traffic control with self-driving cars, rather than on the individual autonomous vehicle behavior (Mladenovic and McPherson 2016). Traffic flow control is not the scope of our approach but the arguments why social justice is of relevance for the road environment is useful for our approach. ...
... Mladenovic und McPherson especially focus on a general worth or even human right of free movement, so that the individual needs and interests related to the freedom of movement on a public road have to be distributed fairly. 3 As needs and interest of traffic participants (referred to as desiderata), they specify "safety, sustainability, privacy, efficiency, and equality of access" (Mladenovic andMcPherson 2016, p. 1135). They argue for a hierarchically distributed self-organizating system. ...
... They argue for a hierarchically distributed self-organizating system. That means they imagine an interchange between the micro-level (decentralized vehicle control) and a macro-level (traffic control): "background system of rules for managing such cooperation, in order to maximize the benefits from self-organization and prevent system failure" (Mladenovic andMcPherson 2016, p. 1142). One practical downside of their approach is that such a system would require a fully connected driving infrastructure with every traffic participant taking part in it. ...
Through modern driver assistant systems, algorithmic decisions already have a significant impact on the behavior of vehicles in everyday traffic. This will become even more prominent in the near future considering the development of autonomous driving functionality. The need to consider ethical principles in the design of such systems is generally acknowledged. However, scope, principles and strategies for their implementations are not yet clear. Most of the current discussions concentrate on situations of unavoidable crashes in which the life of human beings is existentially affected. In this paper, we argue that ethical considerations should be mandatory for any algorithmic decision of autonomous vehicles, instead of a limitation to hazard situations. Such an ethically aligned behavior is relevant because autonomous vehicles, like any other traffic participants, operate in a shared public space, where every behavioral decision impacts the operational possibilities of others. These possibilities concern the fulfillment of a road-user’s safety, utility and comfort needs. We propose that, to operate ethically in such space, an autonomous vehicle will have to take its behavior decisions according to a just distribution of operational possibilities among all traffic participants. Using an application on a partially-autonomous prototype vehicle, we describe how to apply and implement concepts of distributive justice to the driving environment and demonstrate the impact on its behavior in comparison to an advanced but egoistic decision maker.
... In this context, AVs can reduce fuel consumption and pollution, moreover, this emerging technology promises several potential benefits, such as reducing collisions and deaths, reducing traffic congestion, improving mobility options for people incapable of driving and mitigating environmental impacts. Sustainability is a crucial desideratum for engineers and policy makers considering vehicle design, public versus private transportation, infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
... Additionally, some raise privacy concerns due to the need of AVs to communicate constantly for the network to work efficiently. Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) raise the question of how to engineer social justice into traffic control, especially concerning the dimensions of safety sustainability, and privacy. ...
... private transport, and infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
Purpose: In the present century, mobility has come to be understood as one of the main issues of our contemporary society, being a central topic discussed worldwide. Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) are considered an integral part of the new forms of mobility ad have become focus of automotive industry R&D projects, being considered the most popular application in the recent history of such industry (Fan & Fang, 2016). Considering the rapid change imposed on such industry, and new players ready to shape the automotive industry of tomorrow (Attias, 2016), there are still a number of legal, ethical, social, environmental and market barriers to overcome. Within this perspective, the Quintuple Helix model emerges, aiming at broadening the synergy among social, industrial, academic, environmental and governmental interactions, to an extent that the sum of such actions should promote a system of knowledge cooperation in search of society’s well-being. Quintuple Helix agents influence each other on knowledge sharing to promote sustainability by innovations that are pioneering and useful (Carayannis, Barth & Campbell, 2012). We realized that there is still a lack of coordination between companies, government, universities and even society so that these AVs bring economic, social and sustainable development for all. In this sense, Quintuple Helix model can fill up the gap among these agents. Thus, it remains to be known “when” and, most importantly, “how” this innovation will be disseminated. Therefore, this paper aims at understanding if the Quintuple Helix model can positively help in advancements of urban mobility from the insertion of AVs in the society. To this end, we drew five propositions: the relations among government (P1); companies (P2); academy (P3); society (P4) and; environment (P5), provide an advancement on urban mobility, based on the technological development of the AVs.
Design: We carried out a survey on academic articles, government and consulting firms reports, and various websites. The idea was to approach the mobility thematic based on the AVs and the Quintuple Helix. The intention was to seek a meaningful theoretical contribution that adds value to current thinking on the two themes, seeking to deepen knowledge and open research fields in both areas. Therefore, in addition to understanding and discussing both issues jointly, a framework will bring the results with the main practical implications found. From this framework, it was possible to see the real theoretical contribution of the Quintuple Helix in the urban mobility.
Findings: Considering mobility as an incisive aspect that impacts directly on people’s routine, it is necessary to understand such concept from a more integrated and holistic perspective, in order to obtain strong and significant advances. We observed that governments of some countries offer fiscal support and create public policies to strengthen the relationship with the university and industry. As an example, some European countries are already dealing with regulation of incentives to the industry AVs. Regulation should ensure safety and monitor the development of such emerging industry, avoiding any market failures. These nations have created rules regarding prototypes that allow testing, licensing and operation of this technology on public roads. These changes, in turn, directly impact manufacturers in the automotive industry, as all actors must work together to implement a “common language” solution. Fournier (2014) showed that the automotive industry has entered a new era, in which the value creation relies entirely on the dynamic relations in an open ecosystem of innovation with moving boundaries in the long-run. The automotive ecosystem sectors as diverse as consumers of electricity, society, other industries (software, telecommunications, financial services) and government (Rishi et al., 2008). This new era also includes the consumption perception that is different in each country, for instance in emergent nations (e.g. Brazil) the ownership of a car is perceived as status, independence and power. In this sense, it is also worth to understand the consumers’ needs (Attias, 2016). AVs can reduce fuel consumption and pollution, moreover, this emerging technology promises several potential benefits, such as reducing collisions and deaths, reducing traffic congestion, improving mobility options for people incapable of driving and mitigating environmental impacts. Sustainability is a crucial desideratum for engineers and policy makers considering vehicle design, public versus private transportation, infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). In this regard, universities, in turn, may contribute to research on innovative prototypes in a collaborative development environment with companies. The academy plays a central role between the government and an industry, especially in car manufacturers. Universities from different countries are now cooperating with large programs involving both public and private actors for the development and application of automated mobility systems.
Practical Implications: We observed that the Quintuple Helix model contributes favorably to the future of urban mobility in which AVs’ innovation is present. It is noteworthy that among projections and scenarios of the future of mobility (BCG, McKinsey, PWC) AVs are a key factor, even though this innovation is still surrounded by uncertainties. The synergy among agents proposed by Quintuple Helix model is essential for the impacts on the development of this innovation to be minimized, and although we observed the need for action of all agents, this was treated in a fragmented fashion on the documents and studies analyzed. It is understood that the technological development of AVs can be considered at a global level; however, in the case of urban mobility, local specificities should be taken into account, considering social and governmental particularities as determining factors for AVs dissemination. This study opens the discussions on the topic by demonstrating the importance of establishing the VAs’ innovation in a synergistic way among all directly impacted agents (established by the Quintuple Helix model) in order to contribute positively to the future of mobility.
... The issue that arguably has gotten the most attention is the question of how self-driving cars should behave in trolley scenarios (Nyholm, 2018). But, of course, the ethics of self-driving cars is much broader; and even when it comes to the distribution of risks and harms, attention should not be restricted to trolley-like scenarios (Cunneen et al., 2020;Dietrich & Weisswange, 2019;Epting, 2019;Gogoll & Müller, 2017, p. 694;Goodall, 2014Goodall, , 2016Goodall, , 2017Himmelreich, 2018;JafariNaimi, 2017;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Nyholm & Smids, 2016;Nunes, 2019). 2 Specifically, at the center are now questions of justice, power and the normative assessment of institutions and policies tracking a similar development in the literature on the ethics of artificial intelligence (Borenstein et al., 2017;Crawford & Calo, 2016;Gabriel, 2022;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Nunes, 2019;Rahwan, 2018;Susskind, 2018;Zimmermann et al., 2020). This paper is part of this development (cf. ...
... The issue that arguably has gotten the most attention is the question of how self-driving cars should behave in trolley scenarios (Nyholm, 2018). But, of course, the ethics of self-driving cars is much broader; and even when it comes to the distribution of risks and harms, attention should not be restricted to trolley-like scenarios (Cunneen et al., 2020;Dietrich & Weisswange, 2019;Epting, 2019;Gogoll & Müller, 2017, p. 694;Goodall, 2014Goodall, , 2016Goodall, , 2017Himmelreich, 2018;JafariNaimi, 2017;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Nyholm & Smids, 2016;Nunes, 2019). 2 Specifically, at the center are now questions of justice, power and the normative assessment of institutions and policies tracking a similar development in the literature on the ethics of artificial intelligence (Borenstein et al., 2017;Crawford & Calo, 2016;Gabriel, 2022;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Nunes, 2019;Rahwan, 2018;Susskind, 2018;Zimmermann et al., 2020). This paper is part of this development (cf. ...
Much of the debate on the ethics of self-driving cars has revolved around trolley scenarios. This paper instead takes up the political or institutional question of who should decide how a self-driving car drives. Specifically, this paper is on the question of whether and why passengers should be able to control how their car drives. The paper reviews existing arguments—those for passenger ethics settings and for mandatory ethics settings respectively—and argues that they fail. Although the arguments are not successful, they serve as the basis to formulate desiderata that any approach to regulating the driving behavior of self-driving cars ought to fulfill. The paper then proposes one way of designing passenger ethics settings that meets these desiderata.
... In this context, AVs can reduce fuel consumption and pollution; moreover, this emerging technology promises several potential benefits, such as reducing collisions and deaths, reducing traffic congestion, improving mobility for people incapable of driving and mitigating environmental impacts. Sustainability is a crucial desideratum for engineers and policy makers considering vehicle design, public versus private transportation, and infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
... Sustainability is also an important element in the pursuit of social justice: institutions that ensure fair relations between people and reduce harm to future generations are unquestionably important. For these reasons, sustainability is a crucial point for engineers and policy makers who consider vehicle design, public transport vs. private transport, and infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
... Costly adaptations of vehicles can to a large part be dispensed with. A considerable number of people who cannot drive a car will be able to go on their own in a self-driving car (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016, p. 1137). This will increase their mobility, and it can potentially have positive effects on their well-being and social connectedness. ...
... A road management system will of course ensure the swift passage of emergency vehicles when other vehicles have to travel slowly, but will it also offer swift passage to those who can afford a "first" or "business" option for their travel? There will certainly be economic incentives to provide such services for those who can pay for them (Dietrich & Weisswange, 2019;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). The negative effects on social cohesion and solidarity of such a system should not be underestimated. ...
The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbable dilemma-like scenarios. This article provides a broad overview of realistic ethical issues related to self-driving vehicles. Some of the major topics covered are as follows: Strong opinions for and against driverless cars may give rise to severe social and political conflicts. A low tolerance for accidents caused by driverless vehicles may delay the introduction of driverless systems that would substantially reduce the risks. Trade-offs will arise between safety and other requirement on the road traffic system. Over-reliance on the swift collision-avoiding reactions of self-driving vehicles can induce people to take dangerous actions, such as stepping out in front of a car, relying on its fast braking. Children travelling alone can violate safety instructions such as the use of seatbelts. Digital information about routes and destinations can be used to convey commercial and political messages to car users. If fast passage can be bought, then socio-economic segregation of road traffic may result. Terrorists and other criminals can hack into a vehicle and make it crash. They can also use self-driving vehicles for instance to carry bombs to their designed places of detonation or to wreak havoc on a country’s road system.
... In this context, AVs can reduce fuel consumption and pollution; moreover, this emerging technology promises several potential benefits, such as reducing collisions and deaths, reducing traffic congestion, improving mobility for people incapable of driving and mitigating environmental impacts. Sustainability is a crucial desideratum for engineers and policy makers considering vehicle design, public versus private transportation, and infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
... Sustainability is also an important element in the pursuit of social justice: institutions that ensure fair relations between people and reduce harm to future generations are unquestionably important. For these reasons, sustainability is a crucial point for engineers and policy makers who consider vehicle design, public transport vs. private transport, and infrastructure manufacturing (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
The concept of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) has become widespread in Western countries and has become a solid market option, presenting a transport system offer based no longer on ownership but use. This approach places the user at the heart of urban mobility issues, so consumers must be open to adopting new technologies and services, such as autonomous vehicles. Based on our research, this Ph.D. thesis aims to analyze the concept of MaaS in order to identify the conditions for its implementation and diffusion in tomorrow's urban mobility. We found that to take a sustainable place in the urban mobility system, MaaS must be considered as a modular and adaptable business model applicable to all socio-political, regulatory, environmental, and economic contexts. To this end, the business model of this innovative ecosystem must take into account consumer acceptance, coordination of the multiple actors making up the value chain within a MaaS and existing transport systems that are specific with their development of technological.
... therefore, there is the fundamental role of the engineering department, responsible for programming AV and, consequently, its dissemination. Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) state that decision-making power should not be concentrated solely in a small group of experts, especially if financial interests have exclusive influence. This group should not have exclusive rights to decide on all moral aspects of these machines' behaviors (Martin, 2016). ...
... Finally, we cannot eliminate the need for a public and democratic discussion on the societal values that technology shapes. As a result, it is necessary to transparently engage relevant corporate groups in critical discussions and decision-making (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). Disruptions imply changes and such changes are not necessarily a bad thing, but further damage caused by those changes must be anticipated and avoided whenever possible. ...
This paper reviews the management and business research field of autonomous vehicles (AVs) in a bibliometric context aiming to identify strategies, practices, and management tools; and summarises the existing studies and highlight research gaps. Methodologically, the study is qualitative and descriptive, based on a bibliometric review on Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct, followed by a systematic integrative review. Results show that, in the near future, AVs will certainly be introduced in the society. However, such insertion is still surrounded by uncertainties, doubled by governments' lack of planning. The absence of business-related studies can be a determinant for AVs introduction, once business models (BM) play an important for AVs advancement. Nevertheless, especially in Europe, studies related to AVs 'car-sharing' seem to be predominant. As such, we observe a research gap regarding BM and platforms and radical and responsible innovation theories.
... therefore, there is the fundamental role of the 398 engineering department, responsible for programming AV and, consequently, its dissemination. 399 Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) state that decision-making power should not be concentrated 400 ...
... Finally, we cannot eliminate the need for a public and democratic discussion on the societal 418 values that technology shapes. As a result, it is necessary to transparently engage relevant corporate 419 groups in critical discussions and decision-making (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). Disruptions 420 ...
This paper reviews the management and business research field of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) in a bibliometric context aiming to identify strategies, practices, and management tools; and summarizes the existing studies and highlight research gaps. Methodologically, the study is qualitative and descriptive, based on a bibliometric review on Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct, followed by a systematic integrative review. Results show that, in the near future, AVs will certainly be introduced in the society. However, such insertion is still surrounded by uncertainties, doubled by governments’ lack of planning. The absence of business-related studies can be a determinant for AVs introduction, once business models (BM) play an important for AVs advancement. Nevertheless, especially in Europe, studies related to AVs “car-sharing” seem to be predominant. As such, we observe a research gap regarding BM and platforms and radical and responsible innovation theories.
... therefore, we have the fundamental role of the engineering department, responsible for programming AVs and, consequently, its dissemination. Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) says that decision-making power should not be concentrated solely in a small group of experts, especially if financial interests have exclusive influence. This group should not have exclusive rights to decide on all the moral aspects of these machines behavior (Martin, 2016). ...
... Finally, we cannot eliminate the need for a public and democratic discussion of relevant societal values that technology shapes. As a result, it is necessary to engage in a transparent manner all relevant corporate groups in critical discussions and decision-making (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). Change is inescapable and not necessarily a bad thing in itself. ...
This paper aims at characterizing the Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) research field in the areas of management and business in its bibliometric context; identifying strategies, practices and management tools specified in the scope of the investigated publications; summarizing existing evidence, pointing to gaps within this study area. Methodologically, the research is characterized as qualitative and descriptive, drawn by a bibliometric review on the databases; ISI Web of Science, Scopus and Science Direct, followed by a systematic
integrative bibliographic review. All the titles and abstracts of the identified articles were analyzed allowing for a research refinement, adopting the exclusion criteria for; a) duplicates; b) not obtained references; and c) misaligned references. The main results pointed out that, in the near future AVs will certainly be inserted in our society, however the way in which this innovation might be established is still surrounded by uncertainties, impacting directly on governments’ lack of planning for such arrival (Guerra, 2016). The absence of work related to the business area can be a driving factor, considering that business models plays an extremely important role in the events that precede the AVs’ advancement (Yun et al., 2016). Nevertheless, among the analyzed papers,
a studies’ trend is highlighted, especially in European countries (e. g. U.K. and Germany), related to AVs’ business model of “car-sharing” (Zakharenko, 2016; Geldmacher, 2016); presenting such as a great substitute for traditional transportation models (cars, taxis and buses) (Enoch, 2015). In this way, it was observed a study gap related to business models and platforms, radical and responsible innovation theories, in order to minimize the
risks, impacts and uncertainties of the eminent arrival of AVs and provide the necessary tools to guide governmental and organizational spheres.
Keywords: Autonomous Vehicles, Business, Management, Systematic Integrative Review, Bibliometric Review
... From this perspective, speed limits are an effective policy for preventing risk-taking behaviour (Summala, 1988), but other means have to be sought as well. Figure 13: Driver task outlined in three dimensions relevant to accident causation (Summala, 1996) Third, we take a stance that as values and desires are built into technology (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Van den Hoven et al., 2015), we cannot only talk about what behaviour is, but we have to recognize that responsible governance is also about what behaviour should be. In the context of urban mobility, we start from the premise that this system belongs to the domain of goods often referred to as commons, with associated properties (Mladenović, 2021b). ...
... By expanding the ethical discourse to include a philosophical examination of human well-being, this paper aims to contribute to the discourse on wider ethical and moral implications of autonomous vehicle mobility that should receive more attention (Mladenovic and McPherson 2016;Cohen et al. 2018;Dietrich and Weisswange 2019;Epting 2019aEpting , 2021Sparrow and Howard 2020). ...
There is a growing body of scholarship on the ethics of autonomous vehicles. Yet the ethical discourse has mostly been focusing on the behavior of the vehicle in accident scenarios. This paper offers a different ethical prism: the implications of the autonomous vehicle for human well-being. As such, it contributes to the growing discourse on the wider societal and moral implications of the autonomous vehicle. The paper is premised on the neo-Aristotelian approach which holds that as human beings, our well-being depends on developing and exercising our innate human capacities: to know, understand, love, be sociable, imagine, create and use our bodies and use our willpower. To develop and exercise these capacities, our environments need to provide a range of opportunities which will trigger the development and exercise of the capacities. The main argument advanced in the paper is that one plausible future of the autonomous vehicle—a future of single-rider autonomous vehicles—may effectively reduce the opportunities to develop and exercise our capacities to know, be sociable and use our willpower. It will therefore be bad for human well-being, and this provides us with a moral reason to resist this plausible future and search for alternative ones.
... The ethical question is posed, as to how the ADS should be programmed to behave in these and similar circumstances. While these fictional scenarios have captured much of the public attention, a wider set of ethical issues has been discussed in the literature, ranging from issues of risk and safety (Goodall, 2016), distributive justice issues (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016) rights and inequalities (Liu, 2017), human control (Mecacci & Santoni de Sio, 2020), responsibility (Hevelke & Nida-Rümelin, 2014) the political dimension of vehicle automation (Himmelreich, 2019;Jafari-Naimi, 2018;Stilgoe, 2017). ...
The paper presents a framework to realise “meaningful human control” over Automated Driving Systems. The framework is based on an original synthesis of the results of the multidisciplinary research project “Meaningful Human Control over Automated Driving Systems” lead by a team of engineers, philosophers, and psychologists at Delft University of the Technology from 2017 to 2021. Meaningful human control aims at protecting safety and reducing responsibility gaps. The framework is based on the core assumption that human persons and institutions, not hardware and software and their algorithms, should remain ultimately—though not necessarily directly—in control of, and thus morally responsible for, the potentially dangerous operation of driving in mixed traffic. We propose an Automated Driving System to be under meaningful human control if it behaves according to the relevant reasons of the relevant human actors (tracking), and that any potentially dangerous event can be related to a human actor (tracing). We operationalise the requirements for meaningful human control through multidisciplinary work in philosophy, behavioural psychology and traffic engineering. The tracking condition is operationalised via a proximal scale of reasons and the tracing condition via an evaluation cascade table. We review the implications and requirements for the behaviour and skills of human actors, in particular related to supervisory control and driver education. We show how the evaluation cascade table can be applied in concrete engineering use cases in combination with the definition of core components to expose deficiencies in traceability, thereby avoiding so-called responsibility gaps. Future research directions are proposed to expand the philosophical framework and use cases, supervisory control and driver education, real-world pilots and institutional embedding
... The focus on safety and proposed policies will impact the technology and transportation domains. The dimensions of safety being considered and identified will inform the mitigation measures that come in the form of regulatory decisions.Secondary and tertiary impacts, such as the impact on equity and other modes of transit have also been raised(Milakis et al. 2017;Mladenovic and McPherson 2016;Ryan 2020) but policy actions are not yet in place. Many policy issues still possess a great deal of uncertainty like AVs mixed with non-AVs on the road(Chase et al. 2018;Nyholm and ...
... GPS positioning and the emerging fleets of automatic vehicles enable the management schemes (e.g. Mladenovic and McPherson 2016) akin and beyond the respective capacities of smart meters. ...
In this paper, we approach a fair and inclusive transition to a circular economy from a perspective of daily rhythms and illustrate these concepts using examples from the electricity and transport sectors. The circular economy discourse endorses sharing and efficiently using capital assets. To be effective, such strategies further need to manage the timing of demand. Dynamic pricing is frequently used to manage, for example, the demand for electricity services and to match demand with the capacity of production. Congestion charges for road usage similarly aim to shape peak demand. The economic and environmental benefits of these schemes have been demonstrated, but the social consequences remain underexplored. Dynamic prices forge new everyday rhythms and contribute to “shift consumption” by limited access during peak demand. We inquire whether, and to what extent, the existing schemes of dynamic pricing consider issues of equality, equity and fairness when offering time-dependent and dynamic tariffs, and highlight the policy implications of promoting a circular economy with effective and more socially just management of the timing of demand.
... Total carbon emissions may end up increasing instead of declining (Wadud et al. 2016). Moreover, without taking careful regulatory actions in implementing the autonomous traffic ecosystem, autonomous vehicles would be used for continuing the dominance of individual personal cars and not for improving means of public transportation, resulting in inequality in mobility (Mladenovic and McPherson 2016;Sparrow and Howard 2020). Autonomous vehicles may also require costly, additional investments, such as significant 5G network coverage and capacity ...
Sustainability transformations call forth new forms and systems of knowledge across society. However, few tools and processes exist for promoting dialogue among different interests and normative stances in knowledge co-creation. In this article, we build on the notion of thought collectives to argue that understanding and moderating normative tensions are necessary if sustainability science is to provide successful solutions. Drawing on an analysis of the normative tensions between rival high-tech and low-tech thought collectives in the mobility and food production sectors, we discuss three strategic approaches: applying common evaluative frameworks, building contextual convergence and embracing complexity. We argue that these strategies indicate a need to distinguish different kinds of reflexivity in managing tensions among thought collectives. As a practical conclusion, we establish sets of reflexive questions to help sustainability scientists deploy the knowledge management strategies discussed.
... This can be distinguished from a centralized automated driving paradigm in which AVs are considered highly interconnected and mainly coordinated on a group control level (see for example Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016 for a discussion on justice aspects from an AV traffic control perspective). In the future, automated driving might advance toward a more centralized infrastructure. ...
Automated vehicles (AVs) are expected to operate on public roads, together with non-automated vehicles and other road users such as pedestrians or bicycles. Recent ethical reports and guidelines raise worries that AVs will introduce injustice or reinforce existing social inequalities in road traffic. One major injustice concern in today’s traffic is that different types of road users are exposed differently to risks of corporal harm. In the first part of the paper, we discuss the responsibility of AV developers to address existing injustice concerns regarding risk exposure as well as approaches on how to fulfill the responsibility for a fairer distribution of risk. In contrast to popular approaches on the ethics of risk distribution in unavoidable accident cases, we focus on low and moderate risk situations, referred to as routine driving. For routine driving, the obligation to distribute risks fairly must be discussed in the context of risk-taking and risk-acceptance, balancing safety objectives of occupants and other road users with driving utility. In the second part of the paper, we present a typical architecture for decentralized automated driving which contains a dedicated module for real-time risk estimation and management. We examine how risk estimation modules can be adjusted and parameterized to redress some inequalities.
... "there is a need to engage transparently all relevant societal constituencies in critical conversations and decisionmaking about [traffic control] technology development" (Mladenovic andMcPherson, 2016, p. 1145). ...
The UK Government has endorsed the case for autonomous vehicle (AV) technology and its economic benefits in its industrial strategies since 2013. In late 2016 the Science and Technology Committee in the House of Lords (the legislature’s upper chamber) conducted an Inquiry into the policy. We conduct a content analysis of the text corpus of the Inquiry. Drawing from theories of sociotechnical change we explore how it contributes to building a vision of a future AV world embedded in a national economic and technological project. The technology is framed as a solution to societal grand challenges and the Inquiry corpus is dominated by actors committed to the project. Alternative visions, including sceptical interpretations, are present in the corpus, but rare, reflecting the selection process for contributions to the Inquiry. Predominantly, the corpus represents the public as deficient: dangerous drivers, unaware of promised benefits and unduly anxious about the unfamiliar. Their views are marginal in this Parliamentary Inquiry’s findings. AV technology is one of several possible means to pursue wider mobility policy goals of greater safety, affordability, access and sustainability. Our analysis suggests that the pursuit of an AV future risks becoming a goal in itself instead of a means to these broader societal goals.
... Milakis et al. (2018) applied Q-method in an expertbased study to explore accessibility implications of AVs, concluding that AVs will likely have more negative than positive implications for social equity, because the distribution of accessibility benefits will possibly not be equal among different social groups. Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) explored how social justice dimensions (e.g. equal access) could be embedded in traffic control systems in the AVs era. ...
Automated vehicles (AVs) represent a socio-technical transition of the mobility system. Thus far, research has focused predominantly on the technical dimension (i.e. technology development and operation, short-term impacts) of this transition. This paper presents a research agenda that contributes in rebalancing the focus from the technical to the societal dimension of the AVs transition. We adopt the social construction of technology approach, suggesting that technology and society are involved in a dialectical process over time that constructs each other and we identify three key dynamics of the societal dimension of AVs transition based on the multi-level perspective of technological transition. After reviewing the scholarly literature, we suggest an expansion of the research focus in three key research areas: societal acceptance, societal implications and governance of AVs to account for the societal dimension of the AVs transition. In the first area, we suggest an expansion of the research focus from consumers' adoption to citizens' acceptance of introduction of AVs. In the second area, we suggest an expansion of the research focus from short-term to long-term societal implications of AVs. In the third area, we suggest a shift from exploratory scenarios to participative anticipatory governance of desirable AVs futures.
... There are differences in fairness in terms according to what transport element is being considered, for instance in terms of mobility, accessibility, efficiency, cost, privacy, sustainability, or accidents. From an operational perspective traffic control technology has social justice implications issues such as these [41]. This highlights the intersections of movement with wider socio-economic and policy issues and disadvantage among different people and groups in terms of wider accessibility as well as purely transport issues. ...
This paper discusses the concept of ‘fairness’ in transport, specifically regarding women using public transport, future autonomous vehicle taxis or bicycle sharing. Women generally have varying and complex mobility patterns compared to men and suffer disproportionate fairness issues when using transport. Different concepts of fairness are explored, including: equality of opportunity, equity and justice (including procedural, social and distributional justice). While each of these concepts has different implications for women using transport, it is also recognized that fairness principles should apply to all people (regardless of sex, gender or other characteristics). Analysis of the different forms of mobility, as represented by public transport, autonomous vehicles and bicycle sharing, illustrate a variety of specific fairness issues. Factors such as safety and security, cost, physical design of infrastructure and vehicles, and characteristics such as low-income or childcare responsibilities arise in each case. The three cases also indicate a range of both horizonal fairness factors (similar people being treated similarly) and vertical fairness factors (such as more disadvantaged people receiving greater support). Further research is required into setting frameworks for a more comprehensive inclusion of, and balance between, different concepts of fairness and their interactions in both transport policy and practice.
... Practical approaches to reducing traffic-related exposure disparities include a variety of community-level actions such as addition of green space and vegetative barriers, creating active transport opportunities; urban planning focused on transport and health including traffic system design and regulation to prevent building schools or residences near traffic sources (Brugge, Patton, Bob, et al., 2015;Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
The World Health Organization estimates that about 4 million people die every year due to air pollution exposure including deaths from ischemic heart disease and stroke, respiratory diseases, and lung cancer. Transportation sector emissions are one of the major sources of air pollutants. In recent years, research on the health effects of traffic-related air pollution has expanded beyond respiratory, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases to include a growing literature on pregnancy, birth outcomes and development, neurotoxicity and various neurological diseases and disorders. This chapter describes the range of health effects that have been associated with traffic-related air pollution. Several special topics including cumulative risk assessment and environmental justice considerations related to traffic-related air pollution exposures are also presented.
... Among the most discussed technological innovations on the agenda for the next ten years are self-driving carsa technology whose widespread introduction is not only likely to revolutionize transport and mobility as we have known them, but also has the potential to significantly decrease the number of accidents and fatalities (e.g. Coca-Vila 2018; Gogoll and Müller 2017;Mladenovic and McPherson 2016). When entering our roads, driverless cars will possibly be exposed to driving situations that are difficult for machines to cope with. ...
The impending introduction of self-driving cars poses a new stage of complexity not only in technical requirements but in the ethical challenges it evokes. The question of which ethical principles to use for the programming of crash algorithms, especially in response to so-called dilemma situations, is one of the most controversial moral issues discussed. This paper critically investigates the rationale behind rule utilitarianism as to whether and how it might be adequate to guide ethical behaviour of autonomous cars in driving dilemmas. Three core aspects related to the rule utilitarian concept are discussed with regards to their relevance for the given context: the universalization principle, the ambivalence of compliance issues, and the demandingness objection. It is concluded that a rule utilitarian approach might be useful for solving driverless car dilemmas only to a limited extent. In particular, it cannot provide the exclusive ethical criterion when evaluated from a practical point of view. However, it might still be of conceptual value in the context of a pluralist solution.
... Current perspective on parking rights defines them as somewhere between property and personal rights (Taylor, 2014). However, the general theory of mobility rights is still lacking, as these points are rarely discussed in transportation engineering literature (Mladenovic and McPherson, 2015). In turn, the perspective on how parking should be planned or managed ends up being influenced by the lens of the political ideology through which it is observed (Henderson, 2009). ...
Urbanization is one of the grand challenges for Finland in the 21 st century. This challenge is most visible in the Helsinki capital region. In order to cater for these challenges, Helsinki Region Transport Authority has developed a long-term regional transport policy, with a very strong emphasis on accessibility, reduction to private car mode share, and improvement in environmental conditions. Parking management is one of the essential components of this ambitious urban transport plan. This paper presents the case study of dynamic parking scheme for one of the highly urbanized districts in polycentric city of Espoo, a member of the Helsinki Capital Region. Methodological center piece is a user questionnaire, since user perspectives are a crucial aspect in implementing any smart parking solution. Questionnaire investigates users' travel activity, existing preferences related to parking decisions, and stated preferences related to the proposed dynamic parking pricing scheme. Results indicate that there is potential for reducing car dependency and change in travel behavior. However, the results also indicate a high level of opposition to parking fees. Following the results, the question of parking rights is discussed. Finally, the research concludes that parking planning will require cooperation among a range of stakeholders and further research of users, planners, and technological perspectives.
... In particular, it is necessary to have wider societal inclusion and empowerment of the missing 'outsiders' (Van de Poel, 2000), as has already been identified before (Blyth, et al., 2016;Cohen et al., 2018;Mladenovic, 2019). More useful frameworks for enabling the practice of critical citizen engagement and participatory deliberation will be an essential component of such development (Flipse and Puylaert, 2018;Macnaghten and Chilvers, 2014;Mladenovic and McPherson, 2016;Mladenovic, 2019). In developing such frameworks, we should not aim for creating artificial consensus over technological alternatives, but in exploring dissensus and perhaps inevitable conflict of societal values designed into CAV data structures and algorithms (Genus, 2006;Mladenovic, 2019). ...
As an emerging technology, the potential deployment of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in cities is attributed with significant uncertainties and anticipated consequences requiring responsible governance of innovation processes. Despite a growing number of studies on policies and governance arrangements for managing the introduction of CAVs, there is a gap in understanding about country-specific governance strategies and approaches. This research aims to contribute addressing this gap by presenting a comparative analysis of CAV-related policy documents in Finland, UK, and Germany, three countries which are actively seeking to promote the introduction of CAVs and which have distinct administrative traditions. Our analytical framework is based on the set of premises about technology as a complex socio-technical phenomenon, operationalized using governance cultures and sociotechnical imaginaries concepts. Our comparative policy document analysis focuses on the assumed roles for CAV technology, the identified domains and mechanisms of governance, and the assumed actors responsible for steering the development process. The results highlight similarities in pro-automation values across three different countries, while also uncovering important differences outside the domain of traditional transport policy instruments. In addition, the results identify different types of potential technological determinism, which could restrict opportunities for responsiveness and divergent visions of mobility futures in Europe. Concluding with a warning against further depolitization of technological development and a dominant focus on economic growth, we identify several necessary directions for further developing governance and experimentation processes.
... z. B. Gogoll und Müller 2017: 685;Mladenovic und McPherson 2016: 1134. Zwei tödliche Unfälle in den letzten vier Jahren, bei denen jeweils Testwagen des Herstellers Tesla mit eingeschaltetem Autopilot-System einen Lastwagen-Anhänger nicht richtig erkannten (vgl. ...
How should self-driving cars react in cases of unavoidable collisions? The complexity of specific dilemma situations that might arise in the context of autonomous driving pushes well-established ethical traditions of thought to their limits. This paper attempts to open up new opportunities for approaching this issue. By reframing the underlying decision problem from the perspective of ethics of risk, it is argued that the latter is highly relevant for the programming of ethical crash algorithms. The paper’s main contribution lies in providing an interpretation of dilemma situations as ethical problems of risk distribution as well as an outline of the resulting implications in terms of the permissibility of imposing these risks. Initially, moral dilemmas are shown to constitute a particularly challenging risk constellation. Drawing upon the positions of Sven Ove Hansson and Julian Nida-Rümelin, the paper makes the case for a deontological approach based on individual rights on the one hand and a fair distribution of the resulting risks of damage on the other hand. These two criteria are applied to and further elaborated in the context of self-driving car dilemmas. With regard to the first criterion, it is argued that individual rights could be considered to be adequately safeguarded if, and only if, the resulting levels of risk imposition on the individual are acceptable (absolute principle). Besides, some difficulties that emerge in the context of the second criterion of distributive justice (relative principle) are outlined. At this point, various ethical challenges such as the compensation of potential benefits, the principle of harm minimisation, and fundamental differences in individuals’ possibilities of reducing personal harm are critically examined.
... In particular, it is necessary to have wider societal inclusion and empowerment of the missing "outsiders" ( Van de Poel, 2000), as has already been identified before Cohen et al., 2018;Mladenovi c, 2019). More useful frameworks for enabling the practice of critical citizen engagement and participatory deliberation will be an essential component of such development (Flipse and Puylaert, 2018;Macnaghten and Chilvers, 2014;Mladenovi c, 2019;Mladenovic and McPherson, 2016). In developing such frameworks, we should not aim for creating artificial consensus over technological alternatives, but in exploring dissensus and perhaps inevitable conflict of societal values designed into SDV data structures and algorithms (Genus, 2006;Mladenovi c, 2019). ...
As an emerging technology, the potential deployment of self-driving vehicles (SDVs) in cities is attributed with significant uncertainties and anticipated consequences requiring responsible governance of innovation processes. Despite a growing number of studies on policies and governance arrangements for managing the introduction of SDVs, there is a gap in understanding about country-specific governance strategies and approaches. This chapter addresses this gap by presenting a comparative analysis of SDV-related policy documents in Finland, UK, and Germany, three countries which are actively seeking to promote the introduction of SDVs and which have distinct administrative traditions. Our analytical framework is based on the set of premises about technology as a complex socio-technical phenomenon, operationalized using governance cultures and sociotechnical imaginaries concepts. Our comparative policy document analysis focuses on the assumed roles for SDV technology, the identified domains and mechanisms of governance, and the assumed actors responsible for steering the development process. The results highlight similarities in pro-automation values across three different countries, while also uncovering important differences outside the domain of traditional transport policy instruments. In addition, the results identify different types of potential technological determinism, which could restrict opportunities for responsiveness and divergent visions of mobility futures in Europe. Concluding with a warning against further depolitization of technological development and a dominant focus on economic growth, we identify several necessary directions for further developing governance and experimentation processes.
... Cohn et al. (2019) explored potential transport-related changes (e.g., job accessibility) in the case of the introduction of automated vehicles in low-income areas and in areas with higher levels of minority populations in Washington DC. Milakis et al. (2018) identified differences in distribution of automated vehiclese related benefits between social groups, while Mladenovic and McPherson (2016) analyzed traffic control systems in an automated vehicles context focusing on social justice design principles. ...
We analyse the implications of vehicle automation for the accessibility of vulnerable social groups (i.e. people on low income, people with physical and sensory disabilities, older people) and consequently for their transport-related social exclusion. First, we show that the accessibility component influenced by automated vehicles, the vehicle automation level and the mobility service model (i.e. private or shared vehicles) would likely determine the magnitude and direction of social inclusion implications for these social groups. Positive implications for accessibility and thus social inclusion are expected to increase with the level of vehicle automation and vehicle sharing. Yet, the requirements for digital access and online payment for those services, vehicle custom-design, operating complexities, and uncertainties, insecurity and distrust in adoption new vehicle technologies could compromise possible accessibility gains and thus negatively influence social inclusion levels.
... Question of distributive justice requires consideration of user's rights, especially paying attention to the least advantaged, and not just average or aggregate effects. In relation, principles of distributive justice should be designed into the system operation principles [16,18]. In particular, the idea of user's rights translates into the principle of Universal Basic Mobility (UBM). ...
Development of integrated mobility and traffic management strategies is an important aspect of the ongoing transition of urban mobility systems. Extending from existing credit schemes, this research presents a system design and evaluation of a framework based on the principle of Universal Basic Mobility. In particular, using premises of long-term cooperation and hierarchical self-organization, the system design includes user-based Mobility Credits interrelated with Priority Levels. To complement the cooperation framework, system architecture is formulated in line with the distributed ledger technology. The proposed framework is tested using web-based interaction in the form of stated-preference experiment. Results are analyzed through statistical distributions and a discrete-choice model of user decision-making within the proposed framework. This research concludes that this framework could nudge uses towards reciprocity and altruism in their travelling behavior. In addition, experiment participants have provided a range of comments related to positive features, potential for failure, and further development. Finally, the paper ends by raising several implications for wider citizen participation in the integrated mobility system design and evaluation.
... 1 The repeated publication of reports and opinion pieces concerned with the technical, political, legal, and social ramifications of driverless transportation fuel the imagination and address the realization of driverless automobility (for example Bonnefon, Shariff, and Rahwan 2015;Newsdesk 2015;Zakrzewski 2015). Similarly, scholarly work is increasingly focused on the ethics and social justice implications of such a mobility transition (see for example Borenstein, Herkert, and Miller 2017;Epting 2018;Mladenovic and McPherson 2016). ...
Driverless automobility presents a “technological sublime” (Marx 1964; Nye 1994, 1997) encompassing both promises and perils. The light side of the emerging transportation future lies, for instance, in the newly gained freedom from driving. The dark side of this sublime includes ethical challenges and potential harm resulting from the required socio-technical transformations of mobility. This article explores contemporary visions for the self-driving car future through the lens of the sublime and some of its theoretical variations, such as the natural (Kant 1965), technological (Marx 1964; Nye 1994, 1997), electrical (Carey and Quirk 1989), and digital (Mosco 2005) sublime. Nissan’s IDS Concept preview clip (2015) and the Chevrolet FNR trailer (2015) serve as examples for this analysis, which aims to demythologize the visual rhetoric of the depicted awe-inspiring self-driving systems. The sublime’s inherent dialectic of inducing both pleasure and displeasure is removed in the corporate utopian visions in favor of an exalting partnership between human and machine. This strategy succeeds by setting the mobility future in the context of controlled parameters such as the trustworthy communicative vehicle, the vital and independent protagonists, and the harmless and unharmed environment. Recognizing such recurring strategies and identifying the controlled parameters which allow the sublime object to electrify, not terrify, is key for a sensible engagement with such imagined futures and their social, cultural, political, economic, environmental, and ethical implications. Such premediations (Grusin 2010) of awe-inspiring technological formations and the underlying logics ask to be unpacked toward decision making that considers all potential facets of the sublime future.
... Perhaps implicitly agreeing that a continuing focus on the trolley problem and accident situations would further distract from a wider set of relevant moral issues Himmelreich, 2018;Holstein, 2017;JafariNaimi, 2017), a small number of authors has aimed at developing ethical desiderata and their explicit formulation into certain technical aspects of SDV technology. For example, in the footsteps of the value-sensitive design strand, there has been focus on vehicle motion-prediction control (Thornton et al., 2017), traffic/mobility management mechanisms (Mladenovic, Abbas, 2013;Mladenovic et al., 2014;Mladenovic, Abbas, 2015;Mladenovic, McPherson, 2016), and lighting systems (Stone et al., 2019). These works have highlighted the significance of several values, such as social cooperation, care and respect, equality, and individual autonomy. ...
The goal of this article is to deepen the concept of emerging urban mobility technology. Drawing on philosophical everyday and urban aesthetics, as well as the postphenomenological strand in the philosophy of technology, we explicate the relation between everyday aesthetic experience and urban mobility commoning. Thus, we shed light on the central role of aesthetics for providing depth to the important experiential and value-driven meaning of contemporary urban mobility. We use the example of self-driving vehicle (SDV), as potentially mundane, public, dynamic, and social urban robots, for expanding the range of perspectives relevant for our relations to urban mobility technology. We present the range of existing SDV conceptualizations and contrast them with experiential and aesthetic understanding of urban mobility. In conclusion, we reflect on the potential undesired consequences from the depolitization of technological development, and potential new pathways for speculative thinking concerning urban mobility futures in responsible innovation processes.
... In addition to the context of CP, non-monetary mobility credit scheme is proposed in the context of selfdriving vehicles for the purpose of demand management [93][94][95][96][97][98][99]. TMC are suitable for controlling timedependent and place-dependent externalities [90]. ...
Congestion pricing is an emerging trend in the urban environments across the world, with a primary objective of transport demand management. Stemming from the transport economics theory, congestion pricing is an example of a Pigouvian tax. The assumption is that the user is paying an additional 'tax' amount equal to the marginal external costs. The economic perspective is that when a road user decides to travel additional kilometers or additional trips, she imposes costs on herself, other road users, infrastructure, and the rest of the society. Consequently, introducing a pricing mechanism is considered as a good approach to ensure that a limited good is made accessible to those who value it the most. As a result, those with the highest willingness to pay receive the good. However, despite its economic roots, congestion pricing has a strong socio-political dimension. A range of issues arise since congestion pricing affect the distribution of benefits and disadvantages in society, thus raising the questions of public and political acceptance. As a result, despite several successful implementations across the world, congestion pricing has often been rejected in many cities. Drawing on the policy lessons from abroad, this research investigates a potential for congestion pricing in the City of Belgrade. Taking into account crucial socio-political aspects and their importance for a country in transition, as well as emerging development of road pricing technology, this research investigates a potential for mobility credit scheme. Moreover, the policy implications draw on the common European transport planning framework-Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan.
... Taking a more critical approach, ethical discourse has largely focused on how vehicles should be programmed to behave in dilemmatic life-anddeath scenarios, and what decision-making criteria should be followed (e.g., Bonnefon et al. 2016;Gogoll and Müller 2017;Lin 2016;Santoni de Sio 2017). The issues under debate are then how these vehicles should be programmed to operate in such circumstances, who should decide on this programming, and where the resultant moral and legal responsibility lies. 2 While important considerations, critiques have nevertheless been raised about this pathway for ethical discourse, including the over-reliance on viewing autonomous vehicles as a real-life manifestation of the "trolley problem" (JafariNaimi 2017; Nyholm and Smids 2016), the lack of attention to social justice issues (Epting 2018;Mladenovic and McPherson 2016), and the need for systems level analyses (Borenstein et al. 2017). These critiques highlight a broader issue with over-emphasizing hypothetical dilemmatic scenarios: they focus on a yet-to-be-realized endpoint, assuming that fully autonomous vehicles have been introduced into the existing physical, behavioural, and institutional landscape. ...
This paper proposes that autonomous vehicles should be designed to reduce light pollution. In support of this specific proposal, a moral assessment of autonomous vehicles more comprehensive than the dilemmatic life-and-death questions of trolley problem-style situations is presented. The paper therefore consists of two interrelated arguments. The first is that autonomous vehicles are currently still a technology in development, and not one that has acquired its definitive shape, meaning the design of both the vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure is open-ended. Design for values is utilized to articulate a path forward, by which engineering ethics should strive to incorporate values into a technology during its development phase. Second, it is argued that nighttime lighting—a critical supporting infrastructure—should be a prima facie consideration for autonomous vehicles during their development phase. It is shown that a reduction in light pollution, and more boldly a better balance of lighting and darkness, can be achieved via the design of future autonomous vehicles. Two case studies are examined (parking lots and highways) through which autonomous vehicles may be designed for “driving in the dark.” Nighttime lighting issues are thus inserted into a broader ethics of autonomous vehicles, while simultaneously introducing questions of autonomous vehicles into debates about light pollution.
... Furthermore, the adoption of ad-hoc widely accepted policies could be a much more intricate task than the development of completely reliable technologies. Covering fields from traffic management to social equity, their maturation will set the pace for the introduction of fully AVs [2], [13]- [14], [17]- [19]. Additionally, the dates when AVs will be available and legalised will significantly differ from the later moment when they will represent a significant share of the vehicle fleet. ...
The introduction of autonomous vehicles (AV) will represent a milestone in the evolution of transportation andpersonal mobility. AVs are expected to significantly reduce accidents and congestion, while being economically andenvironmentally beneficial. However, many challenges must be overcome before reaching this ideal scenario. This study, whichresults from on-site visits to top research centres and a comprehensive literature review, provides an overall state-of-the-practice on the subject and identifies critical issues to succeed. For example, although most of the required technology isalready available, ensuring the robustness of AVs under all boundary conditions is still a challenge. Additionally, theimplementation of AVs must contribute to the environmental sustainability by promoting the usage of alternative energies andsustainable mobility patterns. Electric vehicles and sharing systems are suitable options, although both require some refinementto incentivise a broader range of customers. Other aspects could be more difficult to resolve and might even postpone thegeneralisation of automated driving. For instance, there is a need for cooperation and management strategies geared towardstraffic efficiency. Also, for transportation and land-use planning to avoid negative territorial and economic impacts. Above all,safe and ethical behaviour rules must be agreed upon before AVs hit the road.
... While much of the current research on autonomous vehicles and shared mobility systems focuses on how to make them commercially viable, future research will be needed to understand how these changes in technology and governance will reshape who gets access, when, and how, and what implications they might have for questions of equity, public health and environmental justice. Much of this research could already benefit from ongoing discussions on the ethics behind the use of big data and algorithms in the governance of emerging smart cities (Brauneis & Goodman, 2017;Kitchin, 2016) and autonomous vehicles (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Papa & Ferreira, 2018;Shariff et al., 2017). ...
Public transport policies play a key role in shaping the social and spatial structure of cities. These policies influence how easily people can access opportunities, including health and educational services and job positions. The accessibility impacts of transport policies thus have important implications for social inequalities and for the promotion of just and inclusive cities. However, in the transportation literature, there is still little theoretically informed understanding of justice and what it means in the context of transport policies. Moreover, few studies have moved beyond descriptive analyses of accessibility inequalities to evaluate how much those inequalities result from transport policies themselves. This is particularly true in cities from the global South, where accessibility and equity have so far remained marginal concerns in the policy realm. This thesis builds on theories of distributive justice and examines how they can guide the evaluation of transport policies and plans. It points to pathways for rigorous assessment of the accessibility impacts of transport policies and it contributes to current discussions on transportation equity. A justice framework is developed to assess the distributional effects of transport policies. This framework is then applied to evaluate recent transport policies developed in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in preparation to host sports mega-events, such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, which included substantial expansion of the rail and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure. This research presents ex-post analyses of the policies implemented between 2014 and 2017 and ex-ante analysis of an as yet unfinished BRT project. It evaluates how the planned transport legacy of those megaevents impacted accessibility to sports venues, healthcare facilities, public schools and job opportunities for different income groups. The results show that there were overall accessibility benefits from the expansion in transport infrastructure between 2014 and 2017, but these were generally offset by the reduction in bus service levels that followed an economic crisis that hit the city after the Olympics. Quasi-counterfactual analysis suggests that, even if the city had not been hit by the economic crisis, recent transport investments related to mega-events would have led to higher accessibility gains for wealthier groups and increased inequalities in access to opportunities. Results suggest that those investments had, or would have had, greater impact on inequalities of access to jobs than in access to schools and healthcare facilities. The evaluation of the future accessibility impacts of the unfinished BRT corridor, nonetheless, indicates that such project could significantly improve access to job opportunities for a large share of Rio’s population, particularly lower-income groups. Spatial analysis techniques show that the magnitude and statistical significance of these results depend on the spatial scale and travel time threshold selected for cumulative opportunity accessibility analysis. These results demonstrate that the ad-hoc methodological choices of accessibility analysis commonly used in the academic and policy literature can change the conclusions of equity assessments of transportation projects.
... They could reduce the parking stock and also continue the established practice of providing facilities dedicated to walking and cycling. They may equally wish to configure the operation of traffic signals to favour certain social groups (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). ...
Academic research on automated vehicles (AVs) has to date been dominated by the fields of engineering and computer science. Questions of how this potentially transformative technology should be governed remain under-researched and tend to concentrate on governing the technology’s early development. We respond in this paper by exploring the possible longer-term effect of government (lack of) intervention.
The paper tests the hypothesis that a “laissez-faire” governance approach is likely to produce less desirable outcomes in a scenario of mass uptake of AVs than would a well-planned set of government interventions. This is done using two prominent themes in transport policy – traffic flow and accessibility – in a scenario of high market penetration of Level-5 automated vehicles in capitalist market economies. The evidence used is drawn from a literature review and from the findings of a set of workshops with stakeholders.
We suggest that a laissez-faire approach will lead to an increase in traffic volume as a result of a growing population of “drivers” and a probable increase in kilometres driven per passenger. At the same time, the hoped-for increases in network efficiency commonly claimed are not guaranteed to come about without appropriate government intervention. The likely consequence is an increase in congestion. And, with respect to accessibility, it is likely that the benefits of AVs will be enjoyed by wealthier individuals and that the wider impacts of AV use (including sprawl) may lead to a deterioration in accessibility for those who depend on walking, cycling or collective transport.
We consider the range of possible government intervention in five categories: Planning/land-use; Regulation/policy; Infrastructure/technology; Service provision; and Economic instruments. For each category, we set out a series of interventions that might be used by governments (at city, region or state level) to manage congestion or protect accessibility in the AV scenario described. Many of these (e.g. road pricing) are already part of the policy mix but some (e.g. ban empty running of AVs) would be new. We find that all interventions applicable to the management of traffic flow would also be expected to contribute to the management of accessibility; we define a small number of additional interventions aimed at protecting the accessibility of priority groups.
Our general finding is that the adoption of a package of these interventions could be expected to lead to better performance against generic traffic-flow and accessibility objectives than would a laissez-faire approach, though questions of extent of application remain.
In our conclusions, we contrast laissez-faire with both anticipatory governance and “precautionary” governance and acknowledge the political difficulty associated with acting in the context of uncertainty. We point out that AVs do not represent the first emerging technology to offer both opportunities and risks and challenge governments at all levels to acknowledge the extent of their potential influence and, in particular, to examine methodically the options available to them and the potential consequences of pursuing them.
... While much of the current research on autonomous vehicles and shared mobility systems focuses on how to make them commercially viable, future research will be needed to understand how these changes in technology and governance will reshape who gets access, when, and how, and what implications they might have for questions of equity, public health and environmental justice. Much of this research could already benefit from ongoing discussions on the ethics behind the use of big data and algorithms in the governance of emerging smart cities (Brauneis & Goodman, 2017;Kitchin, 2016) and autonomous vehicles (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016;Papa & Ferreira, 2018;Shariff et al., 2017). ...
Public transport policies play a key role in shaping the social and spatial structure of cities. These policies influence how easily people can access opportunities, including health and educational services and job positions. The accessibility impacts of transport policies thus have important implications for social inequalities and for the promotion of just and inclusive cities. However, in the transportation literature, there is still little theoretically informed understanding of justice and what it means in the context of transport policies. Moreover, few studies have moved beyond descriptive analyses of accessibility inequalities to evaluate how much those inequalities result from transport policies themselves. This is particularly true in cities from the global South, where accessibility and equity have so far remained marginal concerns in the policy realm.This thesis builds on theories of distributive justice and examines how they can guide the evaluation of transport policies and plans. It points to pathways for rigorous assessment of the accessibility impacts of transport policies and it contributes to current discussions on transportation equity. A justice framework is developed to assess the distributional effects of transport policies. This framework is then applied to evaluate recent transport policies developed in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in preparation to host sports mega-events, such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, which included substantial expansion of the rail and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) infrastructure. This research presents ex-post analyses of the policies implemented between 2014 and 2017 and ex-ante analysis of an as yet unfinished BRT project. It evaluates how the planned transport legacy of those mega-events impacted accessibility to sports venues, healthcare facilities, public schools and job opportunities for different income groups. The results show that there were overall accessibility benefits from the expansion in transport infrastructure between 2014 and 2017, but these were generally offset by the reduction in bus service levels that followed an economic crisis that hit the city after the Olympics. Quasi-counterfactual analysis suggests that, even if the city had not been hit by the economic crisis, recent transport investments related to mega-events would have led to higher accessibility gains for wealthier groups and increased inequalities in access to opportunities. Results suggest that those investments had, or would have had, greater impact on inequalities of access to jobs than in access to schools and healthcare facilities. The evaluation of the future accessibility impacts of the unfinished BRT corridor, nonetheless, indicates that such project could significantly improve access to job opportunities for a large share of Rio’s population, particularly lower-income groups. Spatial analysis techniques show that the magnitude and statistical significance of these results depend on the spatial scale and travel time threshold selected for cumulative opportunity accessibility analysis. These results demonstrate that the ad-hoc methodological choices of accessibility analysis commonly used in the academic and policy literature can change the conclusions of equity assessments of transportation projects.
The chapter presents ethical issues raised by upholding the value of sustainability in the domain of driving automation. After a cursory introduction on sustainability in mobility and AI, the environmental impacts of CAVs are considered. Secondly, effects on the job market and risks of technological unemployment are discussed. Finally, social problems related to inclusivity, discrimination, and justice are addressed. The study of sustainability issues in driving automation accomplishes two results. For what concerns CAVs, it shows that one-sided narratives strongly associating technical aspects of driving automation with ethically beneficial outcomes must be carefully complemented with awareness of potential setbacks and pitfalls. On a more general note, it helps realise that artificial agents cannot be expected to promote moral values by themselves. Ethical commitment and critical thinking are the necessary conditions for artificial agents to mediate the right values in the right way.
Introduction
There is a gap in the literature on the domains of urban quality of life (UQOL) that are mostly affected by traffic and transport. Another gap is the lack of valid and reliable instruments to assess this concept and the domains associated with. In this paper, we report on the development of an instrument to measure urban QOL associated with urban traffic jam.
Methods
Applying a mixed-method approach with sequential exploratory design, we developed the Urban QoL Questionnaire-associated with Traffic Jam (UQLQ-TJ) in two phases: at first, the experiences of 28 key informant residents on the aspects of their life quality associated with traffic jam were, qualitatively, explored. The answers to the research question in phase one provided us with specific items for use in putting into operation the UQLQ-TJ, which was, quantitatively, assessed in terms of validity and reliability, in a survey of 1042 residents.
Findings
In phase one, the participants suggested seven dimensions of UQOL associated with traffic jam: family, physical, environmental, mobility, seniors, psychological, and socio-economic. The analysis of the survey, in phase two, appeared the validity and reliability of the seven dimensions. Confirmatory factor analysis showed goodness of fit (dif = 489, χ2 = 1665.372, χ2/df = 3.40, and P < 0.0001), and the indices RMSEA = 0.048, SRMR = 0.049, CFI = 0.909, and TLI = 0.900 confirmed that the model fit the data well.
Conclusion
Our results supported the initial validity and reliability of the UQLQ-TJ, which may assist urban traffic and transport organizations in improving their interventional efforts. Application of UQLQ-TJ in such evaluations can provide the policymakers with a subjective estimation of multidisciplinary data that encompasses a wide range of urban planning features. The data retrieved using such a validated instrument may be particularly helpful in designing evidence-based health promotion interventions and urban lifestyle educational programs, focused on urban quality of life promotion and well-being.
The ethical implications for the engineering profession of the development and deployment of automated vehicles (AVs) can be explored by analyzing the implications of AVs across three major socio-technical systems-technology, transportation systems, and policy. Mapping the ethical canons of professional engineering societies to these domains provides a lens to investigating existing ethical issues and uncovering issues that still need attention. The codes of ethics for five engineering societies direct engineers to consider, identify, mitigate, and manage how their work affects the public. AV ethics literature in the technology domain has focused mainly on crashes, AV software capabilities, and hardware. This narrow focus signifies that engineers in the technology domain can do more to understand potential impacts beyond AV crash behavior. In the transportation systems domain, among the many ethical issues affected by AVs, how engineers design and deploy surface transportation infrastructure is an example of an ethical system-level problem yet to be addressed. Lastly, the policy domain has begun addressing primary effects like protecting the public from physical harm, but other ethical aspects remain unaddressed. All three domains could benefit from more holistic system-level assessments of the ethical implications of AVs. Engineers can use their professional engineering organization ethical canons to evaluate their contribution to managing ethical issues in these AV domains and improve how automated vehicles serve and safeguard the public.
This article is about the role of factual uncertainty for moral decision-making as it concerns the ethics of machine decision-making (i.e., decisions by AI systems, such as autonomous vehicles, autonomous robots, or decision support systems). The view that is defended here is that factual uncertainties require a normative evaluation and that ethics of machine decision faces a triple-edged problem, which concerns what a machine ought to do, given its technical constraints, what decisional uncertainty is acceptable, and what trade-offs are acceptable to decrease the decisional uncertainty.
Philosophers and researchers across the academy have addressed numerous ethical aspects of automated vehicles. Despite these advancements, they have said little about automated buses. Unlike personal vehicles, buses provide some users with more than just mobility. They provide care and community, aspects of transportation that may be under-appreciated. Exploring these dimensions is the purpose of this paper. While there are several practical concerns for this position, such arguments are secondary. We should not (fully) automate all buses because some vulnerable populations require care from bus drivers to mitigate some dangers that stem from some cities' designs. In turn, the author employs care ethics to advocate for the view that some human drivers should be retained because they serve in care positions that should not be replaced with fully automated systems.
The turbulent nature of catalytic reactions has been well reported. For some reactions, the higher the rate of turbulence, the faster the reaction process. This paper focus on the review of various research works where turbulence models were employed in promoting and advancing study and knowledge of catalysis or catalytic reaction systems (such as fixed bed reactor, trickle bed reactor, combustor, among others) or processes in the twentieth centuries. It also draws attention to several fluid computational dynamics package employed in the simulation and different contributions that have been made in advancing research in the field of catalysis via turbulence modeling. The essence of these is to enhance effective and efficient reactant access to the active sites of the catalyst. This study, however, shows that models such as k-e and RSM turbulence models are better suited for predicting or studying turbulence behavior in a catalytic reaction. It was realized that apart from selecting the turbulence model, appropriate selection of the kinetic model plays a significant role in promoting accurate prediction when carrying out simulations. However, this study was able to identify that only a few research works have given attention to the right and appropriate use or selection of a kinetic model for catalytic reaction systems.
In 2017, the Protestant Church in Germany presented the robot priest “BlessU2” to the participants of the Deutscher Kirchentag in Wittenberg. This generated a number of important questions on key themes of religion(s) in digital societies: Are robots legitimized and authorized to pronounce blessings on humans—and why? To answer such questions, one must first define the interrelationship of technology, religion and the human being. Paul Tillich (1886–1965) referred to the polarization of autonomy and heteronomy by raising the issue of theonomy: the first step on the way to critical research on representing the divine in robotic technology.
Spam emails also known as unsolicited emails (maybe commercial or maybe not) i.e. those mails which are sent without our request or concern. Email spam is the practice of sending unwanted emails, mostly contains commercial messages to randomly generated persons. In the internet email spam is widespread because of such low cost of sending emails other than any other means of communication. It is important to filter spam emails because most of the malicious activities performed in the internet done through email spamming. Though there are many spam filters are available we still get huge amount of
spam emails. This is not because the filters are not accurate & effective; the reason is the generation of quick and effective counters of the algorithm used in the filters. In our project we used mainly three supervised learning algorithms namely Linear SVC, Multinomial NB, and k-NN to implement the filter. We used these algorithms to train the system about spam email by using the feature called word count vector which is
generated by processing a dataset filled with existing emails containing both spam and legitimate emails. The full process of the project and the result of the execution by implementing the three models/algorithms are discussed.
The introduction of autonomous vehicles (AVs) has led to a shift in liability from driver to AV. This paper is a systematic review of the literature on liability with AVs. Articles were selected from EBSCO, SCOPUS and PROQUEST and then sorted based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The findings reveal that most such articles have been published in law journals and transport journals. The articles mainly discuss the steps being taken by developed countries, such as the US, the UK and Germany; the modification of existing laws; and the formulation of new laws. The articles also address the shift in liability from humans to AVs and affirm that there is no general rule on liability for AVs. Researchers conclude that liability would depend on the particular details of a situation, the role of the driver, the level of autonomy exercised by the vehicle, and the environmental factors among other considerations. Earlier papers have also suggested that ethical considerations should be studied when dealing with liability. Further research needs to be done on how users perceive liability and how liability evolves with the considerable changes in the law.
The development of a ‘mobility as a service’ model for accessing urban transport via autonomous vehicles may be expected to have far-reaching implications for the economics of road transport. In particular, it would offer a new opportunity to price access to the roads in accordance with the principles of the free market. Once people are paying for mobility on the roads on a ‘per trip’ basis, it will be possible to offer different levels of access – and service – at different prices. According to hegemonic ideas in the transport planning and economics literature the introduction of such a ‘market in mobility’ would be an economically efficient way of allocating access to the scarce good of space on the roads. In this paper we draw attention to a number of ethical and political challenges to the appropriateness of the use of such a pricing mechanism in the context of urban mobility.
The subject of this research is the impact of disruptive technologies on urban mobility mainly due to driverless vehicles and shared mobility. With the adoption of the disruptive technologies, the general objective is to investigate urban designs changes and to quantify possible alterations in road infrastructure, aiming at the qualification of the public spaces and the more sustainable urban mobility. The specific objectives are: to raise the guidelines for urban redesign; to establish criteria to support the selection of the urban context and the study area; to select and analyze parameters and indicators of different urban contexts; to estimate the alterations of road infrastructure; to carry out the survey of the intervention area; to analyze whether the alterations in road infrastructure validate the initial estimates; to elaborate design scenarios for the road infrastructure changes as a function of the disruptive technologies and to verify if the results fulfill the initially proposed objectives. The hypothesis is that the adoption of disruptive technologies on urban mobility can alter the road infrastructure and enable innovative urban design scenarios.
The method is inductive, through secondary data surveys in the literature and in different data bases, and deductive, through propositions for urban design scenarios and the quantification of road infrastructure alterations, envisioning that the vacant area – around 22% – could be converted in other uses, encompassing the main guidelines found in the literature. Considering the results, the aims were achieved, as well as the hypothesis confirmed, since the design scenarios demonstrate the potential for transformation of the current urban design in favor of public spaces’ qualification and a more sustainable urban mobility.
Aim and Scope Cybersecurity and privacy threats exploit the increased complexity and connectivity of critical infrastructure systems, placing the Nation's security, economy, public safety, and health at risk. As technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous in daily life, cybercrime and cybersecurity tools and techniques evolve concurrently. This fuels the need to develop innovative managerial, technological and strategic solutions. Due to the constant evolution of cybercrimes and technologies advancements, identifying and validating technical solutions in order to access data from new technologies, investigating the impact of these solutions and understanding how technologies can be abused is crucial to the viability of government, commercial, academic, and legal communities, all of which affect national security. Accordingly, this journal focuses on cutting-edge research from both academia and industry, with a particular emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches and novel techniques to increase the security posture of the Internet-and Cloud-of-Things devices. It will focus on the research agendas that investigate vulnerabilities, attacks and associated mitigation strategies for devices that belong to the 'Cyber-of-Things' (e.g. Cyber-Physical Systems, and the Internet of Things) and research agendas that identify cyber-crimes, digital forensics issues, security vulnerabilities, solutions and approaches to improving the cybercrime investigation process. In addition, legal and privacy aspects of collecting, correlating and analyzing big-data from the Internet-and Cloud-of-Things devices including cost-effective retrieval, analysis, and evaluation. Moreover, secure information system and information management challenges, requirements, and methodologies will be covered. Topics of Interest JCIM promotes research and reflects the most recent advances of security and privacy in cybersecurity systems, with emphasis on the following aspects, but certainly not limited to: Abstract: In this era of digitization where literally everything is available at the tip of the finger. Huge amount of data used to flow day in day out, where users used to work with various applications like internet websites, cloud applications, various data servers, web servers, etc. This paper provide idea about access control or authentication used to be acting as first line of defense for preserving data secrecy and its integrity, so far it is learned that the usual login password based methods are easy to implement and to use as well but it is also observed that they are more subjected to be get attacked therefore to preserve authentication on the basis of simple alphanumeric passwords is a challenging task now a days. Hence new methods which bring more strength for authentication and access control are so very expected and desirable.
In recent years, philosophical examinations of automated vehicles have progressed far beyond initial concerns over the ethical decisions that pertain to programming in the event of a crash. In turn, this paper moves in that direction, focusing on the motivations behind efforts to implement driverless vehicles into urban settings. The author argues that the many perceived benefits of these technologies yield a received view of automated vehicles. This position holds that driverless vehicles can solve most if not all urban mobility issues. However, the problem with such an outlook is that it lends itself to transportation planning for automated vehicles, rather than using them as part of planning efforts that could serve urban mobility. Due to this condition, present efforts aimed at improving transportation systems should resist dogmatic thinking. Instead, they should focus on goals that keep topics such a human flourishing, sustainability, and transportation justice firmly in view.
Considering the AVs as an emerging innovation, as well as its adjacencies in terms of impacts, this paper aims to discuss critical aspects that influence the governance model for insertion of AVs in a national context. With this intent, is essential to consider multiple actors that are involved in this context. In this sense we adopt the Quadruple Helix Model as a theoretical lens. The adopted research design is characterized as a theoretical essay. The intention is that the reflections about AVs and governance culminate in an integrative discussion that answers the proposed research question, pointing out theoretical contributions as well as practices, that benefit the field from a new sight on the existing perspectives. The possible and imminent arrival of autonomous vehicles brings to light discussions and challenges in several areas, challenging traditional governance structures. Thus, we defend that actions of the helix must be aligned to direct efforts to provide a robust governance structure to meet the needs for AV deployment and, in the macro level, the development of society (customer-centered).
Current technology developments and potential safety and mobility benefits of self-driving cars are discussed. It poses questions and proposes some initial actions to prepare the profession for the to become actively engaged in partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including software and systems developers, auto manufacturers, and regulatory bodies. Self-driving cars offer the promise of allowing older citizens and those with disabilities to enjoy a level of mobility on a par with that enjoyed by licensed drivers with ready access to cars. In addition to the safety and mobility benefits, self-driving cars would allow significant productivity increases for commuting, goods movement, and care giving. When fully autonomous vehicles are permitted on the roadways, the fundamental nature of vehicle trips will change. Vehicles can shuttle empty to preposition themselves where they are needed. Self-driving vehicles are expected to track more precisely within lanes, which could allow lanes to be narrowed.
A crucial step in Value Sensitive Design (VSD) is the translation of values into design requirements. However, few research has been done on how this translation can be made. In this contribution, I first consider an example of this translation. I then introduce the notion of values hierarchy, a hierarchy structure of values, norms and design requirements. I discuss the relation of specification, by which values can be translated into design requirements, and the for the sake of relation which connects design requirements to underlying norms and values. I discuss conditions under which a certain specification of values into design requirements is adequate or at least tenable.
INTRODUCTION: The idea that values may be embodied in technical systems and devices (artifacts) has taken root in a variety of disciplinary approaches to the study of technology, society, and humanity (Winner 1986; Latour 1992; Hughes 2004; MacKenzie and Wajcman 1985). A pragmatic turn from this largely descriptive posture sets forth values as a design aspiration, exhorting designers and producers to include values, purposively, in the set of criteria by which the excellence of technologies is judged. If an ideal world is one in which technologies promote not only instrumental values such as functional efficiency, safety, reliability, and ease of use, but also the substantive social, moral, and political values to which societies and their peoples subscribe, then those who design systems have a responsibility to take these latter values as well as the former into consideration as they work. (See, for example, Friedman and Nissenbaum 1996, Mitcham 1995, and Nissenbaum 1998.) In technologically advanced, liberal democracies, this set of such values may include liberty, justice, enlightenment, privacy, security, friendship, comfort, trust, autonomy, and sustenance. It is one thing to subscribe, generally, to these ideals, even to make a pragmatic commitment to them, but putting them into practice, which can be considered a form of political or moral activism, in the design of technical systems is not straightforward. Experienced designers will recall the not too distant past when interface, usability, and even safety were overlooked features of software system design.
Drawing perspectives from science and technology studies, philosophy of science, and literature from ethics and social justice, this paper examines the promises and challenges in the development of self-driving vehicle (SDV) technology. We start with the premise that the combination of different computing technologies embedded in SDVs is a powerful tool for efficiency in communications, information gathering, processing, and storage. However, by focusing on efficiency, SDVs provide a new mode of industrialized transportation whose users can only choose between transportation services, but have little or no say about the broader social implications of the technology. We argue that perspectives from social justice and ethics show that SDVs have implications beyond transportation, with profound consequences for users and societies. In particular, values such as privacy, security, and responsibility may be changed for good or bad, in both the short and long-term. The examination of these changes, while the technology is still under foundational development, is as urgent as it is needed.
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent a potentially disruptive yet beneficial change to our transportation system. This new technology has the potential to impact vehicle safety, congestion, and travel behavior. All told, major social AV impacts in the form of crash savings, travel time reduction, fuel efficiency and parking benefits are estimated to approach $2000 to per year per AV, and may eventually approach nearly $4000 when comprehensive crash costs are accounted for. Yet barriers to implementation and mass-market penetration remain. Initial costs will likely be unaffordable. Licensing and testing standards in the U.S. are being developed at the state level, rather than nationally, which may lead to inconsistencies across states. Liability details remain undefined, security concerns linger, and without new privacy standards, a default lack of privacy for personal travel may become the norm. The impacts and interactions with other components of the transportation system, as well as implementation details, remain uncertain. To address these concerns, the federal government should expand research in these areas and create a nationally recognized licensing framework for AVs, determining appropriate standards for liability, security, and data privacy.
The development in vehicle short-range communication, sensing, and in-vehicle computing technology provides an opportunity for wide-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles (SDVs). The issue of intersection control for these future vehicles is one of the emerging research issues. This research focuses on the question of traffic control framework for SDVs, while also attempting to incorporate the advantages and disadvantages to users ensuing from a control framework (i.e., delay distribution). The framework developed from these considerations is a version of Priority System (PS). In addition, distributed vehicle intelligence has been used to formulate a self-organizing control solution for trajectory adjustment. Considering that PS depends on end user responsibility, research presented here evaluates the proposed control framework by including human decision-making. First, this paper focuses on development of web-based experimentation for allowing user interaction with PS. In addition, this paper will use the information collected from the web-based experiment to develop simulation scenarios for an isolated intersection. Proposed control framework has been compared with the conventional actuated traffic signal control. The conclusion from the evaluation is that PS could affect the distribution of delay among the users, until the oversaturation threshold is reached. Finally, the paper presents a summary of results, conclusions, and recommendations for further research. The research presented here raises several implications for further considerations regarding intersection control principles for SDV technology.
Development of in-vehicle computer and sensing technology, along with short-range vehicle-to-vehicle communication has provided technological potential for large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. The issue of intersection control for these future self-driving vehicles is one of the emerging research issues. Contrary to some of the previous research approaches, this paper is proposing a paradigm shift based upon cooperative self-organizing control framework with end-user responsibility. Distributed vehicle intelligence has been used to calculate each vehicle's approaching velocity. The control mechanism has been developed in an agent-based environment. Self-organizing agent's trajectory adjustment bases upon a proposed priority principle. Testing of the system has proved its safety, user comfort, and efficiency functional requirements. Several recommendations for further research are presented.
A number of companies including Google and BMW are currently working on the development of autonomous cars. But if fully autonomous cars are going to drive on our roads, it must be decided who is to be held responsible in case of accidents. This involves not only legal questions, but also moral ones. The first question discussed is whether we should try to design the tort liability for car manufacturers in a way that will help along the development and improvement of autonomous vehicles. In particular, Patrick Lin's concern that any security gain derived from the introduction of autonomous cars would constitute a trade-off in human lives will be addressed. The second question is whether it would be morally permissible to impose liability on the user based on a duty to pay attention to the road and traffic and to intervene when necessary to avoid accidents. Doubts about the moral legitimacy of such a scheme are based on the notion that it is a form of defamation if a person is held to blame for causing the death of another by his inattention if he never had a real chance to intervene. Therefore, the legitimacy of such an approach would depend on the user having an actual chance to do so. The last option discussed in this paper is a system in which a person using an autonomous vehicle has no duty (and possibly no way) of interfering, but is still held (financially, not criminally) responsible for possible accidents. Two ways of doing so are discussed, but only one is judged morally feasible.
Road traffic congestion is not yet reflected in current market prices within the sector and has given rise to a number of instruments to mitigate the resulting negative impacts. The focus of this paper is the tradable credit scheme — an incentive-based economic measure — in order to address traffic congestion. The research questions are (1) whether the state-of-the-art in the literature suggests that tradable credit schemes could be feasibly introduced to mitigate congestion, and (2) whether a tradable credit scheme could have advantages over other instruments. A brief outline of congestion mitigation approaches is provided first to position this type of economic instrument with respect to other measures. The broad issues in the design of a tradable credit scheme are then presented. Most research to date has focused on the use of tradable credits to manage related pollution, but it is clear there is potential to design a scheme for traffic congestion management. To date this is a novel review of tradable credit schemes that has focused specifically on their role in road traffic congestion management.
Converging effect of communication, sensing, and in-vehicle computing technology has ensured potential to develop large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles. Considering the potential impact of this technology, the approach for development cannot overlook needs regarding sustainability and social considerations. This paper argues that control technology for self-driving vehicles has both direct and indirect effect on fundamental human rights, and that the anthropocentric design perspective is a necessary ethical approach. Furthermore, we present current perspectives on operational principles, and relevant theoretical and empirical social implications. We conclude that there is potential for development of traffic-control principles for self-driving vehicles on the basis of mutually-advantageous cooperative production. Finally, we present several important areas for further investigation.
Development of in-vehicle computer and sensing technology, along with short-range vehicle-to-vehicle communication has provided technological potential for large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles. The issue of intersection control for these future driverless vehicles is one of the emerging research issues. Contrary to some of the previous research approaches, this paper is proposing a paradigm shift based upon self-organizing and cooperative control framework. Distributed vehicle intelligence has been used to calculate each vehicle's approaching velocity. The control mechanism has been developed in an agent-based environment. Self-organizing agent's trajectory adjustment bases upon a proposed priority principle. Testing of the system has proved its safety, user comfort, and efficiency functional requirements. Several recommendations for further research are presented.
This paper posits that ethical dilemma scenarios are a useful instrument to provoke policy‐makers and other stakeholders, to including industry, in considering the privacy, ethical, social and other implications of new and emerging technologies. It describes a methodology for constructing and deconstructing such scenarios and provides four such scenarios in an orthogonal relationship with each other. The paper describes some different, but closely related scenario construction–deconstruction methodologies, which formed the basis for the methodology adopted in the European Commission-funded PRESCIENT project. The paper makes the point that in ethical dilemma scenarios, it is not immediately apparent what choices policy‐makers should select. Hence, there is a need for undertaking a privacy and ethical impact assessment and engaging stakeholders in the process to identify and discuss the issues raised in the scenarios.
Utilitarianism, the great reforming philosophy of the nineteenth century, has today acquired the reputation for being a crassly calculating, impersonal philosophy unfit to serve as a guide to moral conduct. Yet what may disqualify utilitarianism as a personal philosophy makes it an eminently suitable guide for public officials in the pursuit of their professional responsibilities. Robert E. Goodin, a philosopher with many books on political theory, public policy and applied ethics to his credit, defends utilitarianism against its critics and shows how it can be applied most effectively over a wide range of public policies. In discussions of such issues as paternalism, social welfare policy, international ethics, nuclear armaments, and international responses to the environment crisis, he demonstrates what a flexible tool his brand of utilitarianism can be in confronting the dilemmas of public policy in the real world.
Contributors to this edited book consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is ‘sustainability’ an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with justice within generations? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? The contested nature of sustainable development is considered––is it a useful concept at all any longer? Is it reconcilable with capital accumulation? Liberal––particularly Rawlsian––and socialist notions of justice are tested against the demands of sustainability, and policy instruments for sustainability––such as environmental taxation––are examined for their distributive effects.
For the past hundred years, innovation within the automotive sector has created safer, cleaner, and more affordable vehicles, but progress has been incremental. The industry now appears close to substantial change, engendered by autonomous, or "self-driving," vehicle technologies. This technology offers the possibility of significant benefits to social welfare — saving lives; reducing crashes, congestion, fuel consumption, and pollution; increasing mobility for the disabled; and ultimately improving land use. This report is intended as a guide for state and federal policymakers on the many issues that this technology raises. After surveying the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, RAND researchers determined that the benefits of the technology likely outweigh the disadvantages. However, many of the benefits will accrue to parties other than the technology's purchasers. These positive externalities may justify some form of subsidy. The report also explores policy issues, communications, regulation and standards, and liability issues raised by the technology; and concludes with some tentative guidance for policymakers, guided largely by the principle that the technology should be allowed and perhaps encouraged when it is superior to an average human driver.
This book provides an invaluable introduction to inter-vehicular communications, demonstrating the networking and communication technologies for reducing fatalities, improving transportation efficiency, and minimising environmental impact. This book addresses the applications and technical aspects of radio-based vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication that can be established by short- and medium range communication based on wireless local area network technology (primarily IEEE 802.11). It contains a coherent treatment of the important topics and technologies contributed by leading experts in the field, covering the potential applications for and their requirements on the communications system. The authors cover physical and medium access control layer issues with focus on IEEE 802.11-based systems, and show how many of the applications benefit when information is efficiently disseminated, and the techniques that provide attractive data aggregation (also includes design of the corresponding middleware). The book also considers issues such as IT-security (means and fundamental trade-off between security and privacy), current standardization activities such as IEEE 802.11p, and the IEEE 1609 standard series. Key Features: Covers the state-of-the-art in the field of vehicular inter-networks such as safety and efficiency applications, physical and medium access control layer issues, middleware, and security Shows how vehicular networks differ from other mobile networks and illustrates the idea of vehicle-to-vehicle communications with application scenarios and with current proofs of concept worldwide Addresses current standardization activities such as IEEE 802.11p and the IEEE 1609 standard series Offers a chapter on mobility models and their use for simulation of vehicular inter-networks. Provides a coherent treatment of the important topics and technologies contributed by leading academic and industry experts in the field. This book provides a reference for professional automotive technologists (OEMS and suppliers), professionals in the area of Intelligent Transportation Systems, and researchers attracted to the field of wireless vehicular communications. Third and fourth year undergraduate and graduate students will also find this book of interest.
G. A. Cohen was one of the most gifted, influential, and progressive voices in contemporary political philosophy. At the time of his death in 2009, he had plans to bring together a number of his most significant papers. This is the first of three volumes to realize those plans. Drawing on three decades of work, it contains previously uncollected articles that have shaped many of the central debates in political philosophy, as well as papers published here for the first time. In these pieces, Cohen asks what egalitarians have most reason to equalize, he considers the relationship between freedom and property, and he reflects upon ideal theory and political practice.
Included here are classic essays such as "Equality of What?" and "Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat," along with more recent contributions such as "Fairness and Legitimacy in Justice," "Freedom and Money," and the previously unpublished "How to Do Political Philosophy." On ample display throughout are the clarity, rigor, conviction, and wit for which Cohen was renowned. Together, these essays demonstrate how his work provides a powerful account of liberty and equality to the left of Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Isaiah Berlin.
Much of our economic and social life is dependent on communication and transportation systems. Travel in urban networks represents an interaction between the demand for transportation and the supply of transportation means and facilities which includes the vehicles, the road networks, as well as the control systems that govern them. The critical elements within these systems are junctions, or intersections, which are controlled by means of traffic signals. Public authorities, which are responsible for the operation of those systems, develop control policies that have a dominant impact on the quality of travel and the level of service provided by the networks. An understanding of the basic models involved in urban traffic control is essential for the development of optimal operating policies that would lead to the effective performance of urban traffic networks.
Values have probably always played a role in engineering design. However, in current practices and design methods, the attention for values in engineering design tends to be implicit and unsystematic. Establishing Design for Values in engineering would require overcoming this situation. This contribution discusses which values play a role in engineering and engineering design, describes existing methods and experiences with Design for Values in engineering, and explores how values can be integrated into engineering design and existing design methods, in particular quality function deployment (QFD). It identifies four challenges for Design for Values in engineering: (1) discovery of the values to be included in engineering design; (2) translation of these values into engineering characteristics; (3) choice among design options that meet different values to different degrees; and (4) verification of whether a design indeed embodies the intended values.
The objective of this work is to provide analytical guidelines and financial justification for the design of shared-vehicle mobility-on-demand systems. Specifically, we consider the fundamental issue of determining the appropriate number of vehicles to field in the fleet, and estimate the financial benefits of several models of car sharing. As a case study, we consider replacing all modes of personal transportation in a city such as Singapore with a fleet of shared automated vehicles, able to drive themselves, e.g., to move to a customer’s location. Using actual transportation data, our analysis suggests a shared-vehicle mobility solution can meet the personal mobility needs of the entire population with a fleet whose size is approximately 1/3 of the total number of passenger vehicles currently in operation.
Moral issues in urban planning involving technology, residents, marginalized groups, ecosystems, and future generations are complex cases, requiring solutions that go beyond the limits of contemporary moral theory. Aside from typical planning problems, there is incongruence between moral theory and some of the subjects that require moral assessment, such as urban infrastructure. Despite this incongruence, there is not a need to develop another moral theory. Instead, a supplemental measure that is compatible with existing moral positions will suffice. My primary goal in this paper is to explain the need for this supplemental measure, describe what one looks like, and show how it works with existing moral systems. The secondary goal is to show that creating a supplemental measure that provides congruency between moral systems that are designed to assess human action and non-human subjects advances the study of moral theory.
Climate change is projected to have very severe impacts on future generations. Given this, any adequate response to it has to consider the nature of our obligations to future generations. This paper seeks to do that and to relate this to the way that inter-generational justice is often framed by economic analyses of climate change. To do this the paper considers three kinds of considerations that, it has been argued, should guide the kinds of actions that one generation should take if it is to treat both current and future people equitably. In particular it examines the case for what has been termed pure time discounting, growth discounting and opportunity cost discounting; and it assesses their implications for climate policy. It argues that none of these support the claims of those who think they give us reason to delay aggressive mitigation policies. It also finds, however, that the second kind of argument can, in certain circumstances, provide support for passing on some of the costs of mitigation to future generations.
Sustainable mobility has long been sought after in cities around the world, particularly in industrialised countries, but also increasingly in the emerging cities in Asia. Progress however appears difficult to make as the private car, still largely fuelled by petrol or diesel, remains the mainstream mode of use. Transport is the key sector where carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions seem difficult to reduce. Transport, Climate Change and the City seeks to develop achievable and low transport CO2 emission futures in a range of international case studies, including in London, Oxfordshire, Delhi, Jinan and Auckland. The aim is that the scenarios as developed, and the consideration of implementation and governance issues, can help us plan for and achieve attractive future travel behaviours at the city level. The alternative is to continue with only incremental progress against CO2 reduction targets, to 'sleepwalk' into climate change difficulties, oil scarcity, a poor quality of life, and to continue with the high traffic casualty figures. The topic is thus critical, with transport viewed as central to the achievement of the sustainable city and reduced CO2 emissions.
In many respects, information and communication technologies (ICTs) pose new challenges to society. It is worth recognizing what ICTs represent within the urban space because of their widespread use and increasing presence in people?s daily lives. ICTs allow new ways of interaction between citizens and communities and, according to many authors, their use can improve not only communication within society, but also public management as a whole. Their use, therefore, favors greater social and economic development.
This article will describe how transportation agencies around the world sometimes revert to the installation of Adaptive Traffic Control Systems (ATCS) in order to resolve issues with network-wide traffic signal control. But, because of time pressure, the buyers often have little time to consider the strengths and weaknesses of all system. This often impairs effective decision-making in selecting the future ATCS and can lead to increased costs, lack of evident benefits, and even a shutdown of the system. In order to facilitate the effective decision-making of transportation agencies, this article focuses on providing compiled world-wide overview, comparison and analysis of ATCS features. The large-scale comparative analysis is bringing in different perspectives and experiences with ATCS installations. Potential lessons, coming from merged experiences from around the world, are relevant to applications in European transportation agencies.
Recent advancements in Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) technologies allows equipped vehicles to travel with much shorter headways on freeways, increasing freeway capacity and reducing fuel consumption. The technology, augmented by the capabilities made available through the connected vehicles framework, has opened the door for many significant developments in traffic management and control applications. In this paper, we present a novel multi-agent system approach to resolve conflicts based on a token-based dynamic priority index (PI) concept. Experimental results showed the ability of agents to adapt and form high performance streams in a connected vehicle environment as an emerging behavior.
Considering an emerging technological potential for large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles, there is a need to establish intersection control mechanism. Contrary to some of the previous research efforts, this paper is proposing an expanded design perspective that includes social sustainability. The approach for sustainable design focuses on the notion of social justice. The framework of social justice is developed through a system of priority levels and hierarchically decentralized control based on distributed vehicle intelligence. The control mechanism has been developed in an agent-based environment. Testing of the system has proved its safety, user comfort, efficiency, and delay distribution requirements. Several recommendations for further research are presented.
This article will discuss how transportation agencies around the world are facing the need for improvement in the management of transportation networks under their control. One of the challenges is the safe and effective control of large-scale traffic light systems. As one of the solutions, some agencies are installing Adaptive Traffic Control Systems (ATCS). This article focuses on the potential functional requirements for selection of these ATCS and also establishes the groundwork for the procurement and installation of these systems. Better planning for in-house support is an essential component for decision-making on future ATCS. This is especially important for adequate preparations of detection and communication infrastructure.
Modern philosophy recognizes two major ethical theories: deontology, which encourages adherence to rules and fulfillment of duties or obligations; and consequentialism, which evaluates morally significant actions strictly on the basis of their actual or anticipated outcomes. Both involve the systematic application of universal abstract principles, reflecting the culturally dominant paradigm of technical rationality. Professional societies promulgate codes of ethics with which engineers are expected to comply (deontology), while courts and the public generally assign liability to engineers primarily in accordance with the results of their work, whether intended or unintended (consequentialism). A third option, prominent in ancient philosophy, has reemerged recently: virtue ethics, which recognizes that sensitivity to context and practical judgment are indispensable in particular concrete situations, and therefore rightly focuses on the person who acts, rather than the action itself. Beneficial character traits-i.e., virtues-are identified within a specific social practice in light of the internal goods that are unique to it. This paper proposes a comprehensive framework for implementing virtue ethics within engineering.
Knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers is the foundation for answering ethical questions about the work of engineers. This paper defines the responsibilities of engineers by considering what constitutes the nature of engineering as a particular form of activity. Specifically, this paper focuses on the ethical responsibilities of engineers qua engineers. Such responsibilities refer to the duties acquired in virtue of being a member of a group. We examine the practice of engineering, drawing on the idea of practices developed by philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, and show how the idea of a practice is important for identifying and justifying the responsibilities of engineers. To demonstrate the contribution that knowledge of the responsibilities of engineers makes to engineering ethics, a case study from structural engineering is discussed. The discussion of the failure of the Sleipner A Platform off the coast of Norway in 1991 demonstrates how the responsibilities of engineers can be derived from knowledge of the nature of engineering and its context.
All over the globe, people stop and go as the traffic lights dictate. In a century marked by intense nationalism and insistence on multicultural variation, the same technology and internalized social control is the norm everywhere. Common belief insists that drivers are worse in Boston, or in Paris, or in Rome, or wherever. The perception of differences has a long history. In 1922, an American traffic engineer reported that European drivers paid more attention to traffic police because their culture made for conformity. What makes the report interesting is that five years earlier, an Italian visiting Boston had made exactly the opposite comment. One suspects that the behaviors were more similar than different. The emergence and dissemination of traffic control systems provide a striking example of the way in which urban policy is seldom just local, but emulates national, even global, patterns.