Car and the city. Socio-technical pathways to 2030

A socio-technical approach is used to show that the future of urban mobility will
depend on the competition between coalitions of innovative actors who support
alternative transport systems. The current positioning of these coalitions is mapped
with reference to innovation and power. The supporting coalition of the ‘individual
car’ system benefits from a dominant position on current alternatives, but faces
external pressures for change. Three transition pathways to 2030 are considered: 1)
‘AUTO-city’, i.e. the reconfiguration of the ‘individual car’ supporting coalition
through the stable integration of producers of batteries; 2) ‘ECO-city’, i.e. the
empowering of local coalitions which integrate all non-car modes, and their
diffusion from pioneering to laggard cities; 3) ‘ELECTRI-city’, i.e. the empowering
of a new coalition centered on electric operators which establish a new ‘electric
vehicles + smart grids’ system. The deployment of one or another transition
pathway also depends on the ability of supporting coalitions to influence political
institutions. Without a political action for the weakening of the dominant position of
the ‘individual car’ system, the ‘AUTO-city’ transition pathway will prevail. To
support the ‘ECO-city’ and the ‘ELECTRI-city’ transition pathways, a multilevel
transport policy or a national/federal industrial policy is needed, respectively.