Car and the city: Socio-technical transition pathways to 2030

The socio-technical approach to innovation 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. A new graphical tool—the socio-technical map—is introduced in order to
represent the positioning of supporting coalitions with reference to three variables: business
models, propulsion technologies and power. Three transition pathways to 2030may emerge from
the current situation of urban mobility: 1) ‘AUTO-city’, i.e. the reconfiguration of the ‘individual
car’ dominant system through the stable integration of producers of batteries; 2) ‘ECO-city’, i.e.
the further empowering and diffusion of local coalitions which already integrate all non-car
modes of transport; 3) ‘ELECTRI-city’, i.e. a new ‘electricity vehicles + smart grids’ system
established by a coalition led by electric operators. Because of the cumulative processes between
the transformation of supporting coalition and their access to higher level of competence and
power, both technologies and policies can be considered as endogenous variables to transition
pathways. The resulting policy prescriptions are clear-cut: if not destabilized by policy pressure,
the ‘AUTO-city’will prevail; to support the ‘ECO-city’ and the ‘ELECTRI-city’, a multilevel policy for
urban and transport planning and a national innovation and industrial policy are needed,
respectively.