Are driverless cars still the future of urban mobility?

While the public remains unconvinced, legislators are likely to continue treading lightly around the issue. “We require a behaviour change,” says Ms Bulc. “We need innovations in human behaviour as well as business modelling, and the redefinition of value and liability networks.”

And Chris Choa is in “absolute” agreement. “In the end, it’s not the hardware, it’s the software,” he says. “By that, I mean it’s the people, it’s the regulatory environment, and it’s the cultural attitudes that pose the biggest challenge.”

Many of the benefits promised by autonomous vehicles can be realised by other means

Are current highways networks, which are in large part legacy systems inherited from the 20th century, really fit for driverless cars? It seems fair to assume that such a radical modal shift in mobility would necessitate an extensive redesign of the urban realm. But when pressed on this issue, Chris Choa urges a reframing of the question.

“The goal is liveability. We should not ask ‘how well suited is the city to autonomous vehicles?’, but ‘how well suited is the city to people?’ Many of the promises of autonomous vehicles could be better delivered by creating cities that are easier to walk or cycle through. You don’t necessarily need a vehicle at all.”  

“As we are breathlessly pursuing the potential of technology, we should keep our minds open to the possibility not just of the smart city, but of the ‘dumb’ city. There may actually be some cities that are very slow to adopt smart technology because they’re constrained by informal systems or extreme topographical challenges. Perhaps we’ll learn something from how those cities approach mobility that can inform our own approaches.”

Investors remain sceptical, particularly at institutional level

There is no shortage of funds ready for deployment. Investors, says Violeta Bulc, are sitting on sizeable mounds of dry powder: “They are hungry for good projects,” she says. “But there is much more money out there than good projects.” It’s a refrain that will be familiar to anyone who has read the WBEF report: Bridging the Gap: Private investment in future infrastructure provision.

The pursuit of a green deal in Europe, exemplified by the European Investment Bank’s pledge to divest from fossil fuels, has provided a nudge in the right direction. Ms Bulc believes that, in this age of innovation, investors should seek to nurture complementarities rather than competition between emerging technologies – particularly where they promise a climate dividend.

“Two processes are underway at the same time,” she says. “The ‘greenification’ of transport and the digitalisation of transport. Bringing these together is proving very hard for the industry.”

In spite of all the above, autonomous vehicles ARE still the future of urban mobility

So say nearly three-quarters of our audience. The hurdles may be high and numerous, but there remains a certain sense of inevitability about the eventual adoption of autonomous mobility solutions. But while a broad consensus exists, at least among the WBEF community, on the question of “if”, the question of “when” remains harder to answer. Says Violeta Bulc: “The technology will take a matter of years. But the whole ecosystem? I think we need decades.”

For Chris Choa, the issue mirrors a wider discussion on how we define social progress as the full effect of the fourth industrial revolution takes hold.

“How much are we willing to trust a technocratic approach to better living, in which we do realise benefits, but we give up some personal autonomy? This is not just an issue that is being hotly debated in the tech bubble. It’s being debated in every aspect of our life, in polities all around the world.”