ABSTRACT

As part of the infiltration of automation across urban life, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are traversing cities and regions across the world. This paper presents our critical analysis of trials of these vehicles, which are being shaped by, and are shaping, the material, political, and economic fabric of the city. We take the burgeoning literature on urban experimentation in a new empirical direction – that of mobility – and deepen understanding of the sense in which such experiments are urban. Our extensive analysis of global experiments with automated vehicles provides an analytical typology of four forms of experimentation – on-road, test bed, precinct, and living lab – each with differing relations to the city and differing potentials for political transformation. We illuminate the city as much more than a container for experiments, being multiply implicated in these AV trials through which, we argue, differentiated conditions of possibility emerge for contesting and reconfiguring the city’s “automobility.”

摘要

作为自动化渗透到城市生活中的一部分，自动驾驶汽车 (AV) 正在穿越世界各地的城市和地区。本文介绍了我们对这些车辆试验的批判性分析，这些车辆正在被塑造，并且正在塑造城市的物质、政治和经济结构。我们将新兴的城市实验文献带入一个新的经验方向——流动性——并加深对这些实验在城市的意义的理解。我们对全球自动驾驶汽车实验的广泛分析提供了四种实验形式的分析类型学——路上、试验台、区域和生活实验室——每一种都与城市的关系不同，政治变革的潜力也不同。我们照亮城市不仅仅是一个实验容器，