Building the UK vision of a driverless future: A Parliamentary Inquiry case study

The study examines how the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 2016 Inquiry into autonomous vehicles (AVs) contributes to building a national vision—or sociotechnical imaginary—of a driverless future. Despite public doubts about AVs, the UK Government has actively promoted AV development since 2013 as part of its industrial strategy and the ‘Future of Mobility’ Grand Challenge. The paper asks how Inquiry participants and the process itself shape expectations of AVs, with research questions focusing on thematic prevalence across contributors (RQ1) and on whether the Inquiry constructs AVs as a national project, as inevitable, as net beneficial over risky, and whether it positions the public as passive to be persuaded (RQ2a–RQ2d). The study’s purpose is to understand if and how a parliamentary inquiry performs vision-building that may close debate and prioritise technological deployment as an end in itself over broader mobility goals.

The paper situates AV vision-building within theories of sociotechnical change, particularly sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim), social representations (Moscovici), and governance cultures. Prior work shows governments and industry often frame AVs as transformative and inevitable, aligning them with national economic projects and grand challenges. Studies in Germany, Norway, Finland, the UK and elsewhere find that policy documents and promotional materials cast the public primarily as future users/customers rather than citizens, emphasise benefits, and treat public engagement as acceptance-building. Critical perspectives note risks of a ‘politics of urgency’ and ‘race’ rhetoric that legitimise technological solutions, potentially narrowing democratic debate, marginalising public perspectives, and under-specifying failure criteria in pilots. The review anticipates that the UK Inquiry would align AVs with national goals, presume inevitability, accentuate benefits over risks, and frame the public as a group to be educated or persuaded.

Design: Case study content analysis of the UK House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s 2016 Inquiry on autonomous vehicles (“Driverless vehicles—where are we going?”). The corpus spans the call for evidence (Sept 2016), written evidence, oral sessions (Nov 2016), the final report (Mar 2017), and the Government response (Oct 2017). Scope: Focused on road AVs, analysing 3,350 text units out of 4,109 total units; unit of analysis was the paragraph. Contributors were classified into 14 categories (e.g., Government, House of Lords, insurers/legal, business/research, academics, local government, consumer groups, public). Coding and reliability: Classical content analysis with a 64-code codebook developed iteratively from open reading. Broad themes (“head codes”) and subsidiary codes (“sub-codes”) captured manifest meanings (e.g., regulation roles, economic models, risks/benefits, public framings, expectations/timescales, infrastructure). Intercoder reliability on independently coded samples was good: Cohen’s Kappa = 0.70; Gwet’s AC = 0.92. Coding was managed in NVivo with use of auto word search, co-occurrence, and descriptive statistics. Analysis: Quantitative summaries addressed RQ1 (prevalence and distribution of themes by contributor). Qualitative interpretation and illustrative quotations addressed RQ2 (national project framing, inevitability claims, balance of risk/benefit, and constructions of the public).

RQ1 (theme prevalence and distribution): Across the corpus, the most prevalent head codes were: Role of regulation/regulators (~51% of text units), AV economic models (~44%), Possible risks (~42%), The public (~41%), Possible gains (~34%), Role of innovators (~30%), AV future expectations (~30%), and Infrastructure (~21%). Government actors emphasised regulatory facilitation and economic opportunity; insurers/legal focused on liabilities and frameworks; business/research highlighted data ownership and market models; consumer groups and charities referenced the public more than government actors did. Despite expectations of boosterism, risks were mentioned more often than gains overall; however, risks were typically framed as challenges to be addressed rather than as reasons to reconsider AV deployment. RQ2a (national project): The Inquiry materials collectively framed AVs as a UK national economic and technological project. Regulators’ roles in defining legal frameworks and facilitating technological and economic progress dominated; opportunities for UK leadership and inward investment were recurrent. RQ2b (inevitability/desirability): Only about 10% of content discussed whether AVs should happen; within that, AVs were largely presented as highly desirable (~5%) or inevitable (~3%), with very limited content contesting desirability (~2%) or calling out hype (~1%). Timescales for deployment and fears of being ‘left behind’ were common. RQ2c (benefits vs risks): Benefits cited included economic growth, logistics efficiencies, safer roads (with automation), public goods such as reduced congestion and pollution, broader access, and productivity gains. Risks invoked—liability/ethics, cybersecurity/privacy, data ownership, road safety risks, mixed fleets—were predominantly treated as problems to be solved via regulation and innovation, not as grounds to challenge the imaginary. RQ2d (the public): The public were frequently represented as future users (‘AV drivers or riders’), or as deficient: dangerous drivers (behaviour deficit), lacking knowledge of AVs (knowledge deficit), or holding unwarranted fears (attitude deficit). Consultation was often framed as a route to increase acceptance rather than to shape the trajectory. Government contributions paid comparatively less attention to the public than other contributors. The Inquiry’s own report ultimately emphasised issues (e.g., Level 3 risks, mixed fleets) and noted that AVs are not the only route to road safety, yet it remained aligned with enabling AV progress and UK leadership.

The findings show the Inquiry materially contributed to constructing a UK sociotechnical imaginary of AVs as a national project tied to economic leadership and a modernising industrial strategy. The Inquiry’s framing and contributor composition privileged facilitative regulation, economic opportunity, and timescale acceleration, while narrowing debate about whether AVs are the best means to broader mobility goals. Although risks were frequently discussed, they were incorporated as solvable hurdles, reinforcing inevitability and desirability rather than prompting reconsideration of aims or alternatives. The public were positioned chiefly as future users needing education and reassurance, rather than as citizens co-producing mobility futures. This aligns with prior literature on elite imaginaries and acceptance-oriented engagement, raising concerns that democratic deliberation is closed down rather than opened up. The Inquiry’s conclusions heeded some dissent (e.g., Level 3 handover dangers) and acknowledged uncertainties (economic evidence gaps), but the overarching narrative continued to prioritise enabling AV deployment and UK participation in supply-side opportunities.

This case study shows how a UK parliamentary inquiry can perform vision-building: consolidating AVs as a desirable and inevitable national project, centring regulatory facilitation and economic leadership, and relegating the public to acceptance and user roles. The Inquiry risks making the pursuit of AV deployment an end in itself rather than a means to societal goals such as safety, equity, accessibility, affordability, and sustainability—many of which could be advanced through alternative transport policies (e.g., investment in public transport). The paper contributes empirical evidence that inquiries can close debate around technological pathways even while acknowledging risks and uncertainties. Future research should explore more inclusive, co-productive engagement designs within policy processes; comparative analyses across countries and policy instruments; and evaluation of how different regulatory framings affect the balance between private innovation and public-interest mobility outcomes.

The corpus reflects contributors selected or attracted by the Inquiry’s remit, producing a dataset dominated by government entities, government-funded initiatives, and stakeholders committed to AV development; major automotive manufacturers were largely absent. The analysis focused on road AVs only, excluding non-road domains. As a content analysis of a single national case at a particular time (2016–2017), findings may not generalise across contexts or later policy stages. The Inquiry process resembles a dialogue among government and affiliated actors rather than an open public deliberation, limiting visibility of broader public perspectives.