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

The UK government has actively promoted autonomous vehicle (AV) technology since 2013, highlighting its economic benefits. Despite public reservations, this commitment has led to various initiatives, including the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee's Inquiry into AVs in late 2016. This study analyzes the Inquiry's text corpus to investigate how it shapes the vision of a future AV world within a national economic and technological project. The research draws upon theories of sociotechnical change to explore how the Inquiry frames AV technology, the roles of different participants, and the representation of the public. The presumed benefits of AV technology – improved safety, reduced congestion, increased accessibility, and economic growth – are widely cited and used to justify government support. However, this paper questions whether the pursuit of an AV future is becoming an end in itself, rather than a means to achieve broader societal goals.

Existing literature highlights the efforts of AV developers and governments in constructing visions of the future, often employing concepts like sociotechnical imaginaries and governance cultures. Studies have analyzed position papers, consultation responses, policy documents, and promotional materials to examine how these visions position users (as customers rather than citizens) and often marginalize public perspectives. The concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, defined as collectively imagined forms of social life and social order, is central to understanding how nation-specific technological projects are envisioned and realized. The framing of technologies as solutions to grand challenges, such as improved mobility, is shown to encourage a politics of urgency and legitimate pre-selected sociotechnical solutions. This approach often treats users as passive subjects, neglecting their role as citizens integral to the co-production of sociotechnical systems. Critical perspectives emphasize the importance of public involvement as citizens, not just consumers, in shaping technological development.

This paper uses a content analysis of the House of Lords' 2016 Inquiry into AVs, "Driverless vehicles: where are we going?" The corpus includes the call for evidence, written submissions (85 contributors), and oral evidence (20 witnesses). The analysis focuses on road vehicles, excluding material on non-road AVs. Each paragraph is treated as a text unit. A coding frame, developed iteratively and tested for inter-coder reliability (Cohen's Kappa = 0.70; Gwet's AC = 0.92), was applied to categorize themes. The quantitative analysis examines the prevalence and distribution of themes across different contributor groups. Qualitative analysis interprets the coded text units, illustrated with selected quotations, to answer research questions. The research questions focus on the prevalence of specific themes within the corpus and the presence of elements indicative of vision-building, such as the framing of AV development as a national project, its inevitability, and the representation of the public.

The Inquiry's framing and contributor selection strongly influenced the content. The call for evidence presumed the desirability of AV deployment. The contributors primarily included stakeholders committed to the technology, with limited representation from major automotive manufacturers and diverse public voices. Many contributors' activities were government-funded. The quantitative analysis revealed a concentration of themes reflecting the government's project of building an AV future. Government actors focused less on the public than other participants. Contrary to expectations, possible risks received more attention than potential gains. The most prevalent themes included those related to regulation, economic benefits, and UK opportunities, representing the government's project of building an AV future for economic growth. Other key themes were related to liability, data ownership, digital risks, public goods, and the timeline of AV deployment. The public's role was largely framed as future AV users, with emphasis on deficiencies in their behavior, knowledge, or attitudes. Government contributions paid minimal attention to the public's perspective. The qualitative analysis confirmed that AV development is presented as a national project, inevitable and desirable. Risks were primarily framed as challenges to overcome, rather than reasons to question the project. Although some dissenting voices were present, they were a minority and largely marginalized in the Inquiry's conclusions.

The findings support existing research on the UK's AV project, showing an emphasis on urgency and economic opportunity. The Inquiry's emphasis on the supply-side of AV development and its marginalization of the public's perspective mirror observations in previous studies. The focus on achieving UK leadership in AV technology overshadows other grand challenges, such as improving public transport, air quality, and social equality. While the Inquiry acknowledges risks, it frames them as challenges to overcome rather than fundamental objections to the AV project. The dominant narrative presents an overly positive view of the economic and social benefits of AVs, neglecting potential negative consequences like increased travel demand and exacerbation of existing inequalities. The paper critiques the representation of the public as deficient (bad drivers, uninformed consumers, anxious citizens), which hinders genuine public engagement and co-production of technological systems. The study highlights how the Inquiry, despite mentioning public consultation, limited actual public participation in shaping the future of mobility.

The House of Lords' AV Inquiry exemplifies how powerful actors construct dominant representations of technological futures. The Inquiry functioned as a collaboration to build a vision of an AV future framed as an urgent national project, emphasizing its desirability and inevitability. The focus on the supply-side and marginalization of public perspectives raise concerns about the lack of genuine public engagement in shaping the future of mobility. Future research should explore ways to ensure more inclusive and participatory processes in the development and deployment of transformative technologies.

The study is limited to a single case study, the House of Lords Inquiry. While the Inquiry is a significant data source, it may not fully represent all views on AV technology. The coding frame, while reliable, may have overlooked some nuances in the text. The focus on the UK context limits the generalizability of the findings to other national contexts.