Cities have started to restructure themselves into ‘smart cities’ to address the challenges of the 21st Century—such as climate change, sustainable development, and digital disruption. One of the major obstacles to success for a smart city is to tackle the mobility and accessibility issues via ‘smart mobility’ solutions. At the verge of the age of smart urbanism, autonomous vehicle technology is seen as an opportunity to realize the smart mobility vision of cities. However, this innovative technological advancement is also speculated to bring a major disruption in urban transport, land use, employment, parking, car ownership, infrastructure design, capital investment decisions, sustainability, mobility, and traffic safety. Despite the potential threats, urban planners and managers are not yet prepared to develop autonomous vehicle strategies for cities to deal with these threats. This is mainly due to a lack of knowledge on the social implications of autonomous capabilities and how exactly they will disrupt our cities. This viewpoint provides a snapshot of the current status of vehicle automation, the direction in which the field is moving forward, the potential impacts of systematic adoption of autonomous vehicles, and how urban planners can mitigate the built environment and land use disruption of autonomous vehicles.

Public perception of the next generation of vehicles will affect their design, deployment, and ultimately their use. As the engineering terms of self-driving, driverless, fully automated, and autonomous were introduced to the social sciences and the public at large, the subtle differences among these terms have been lost. However, using them as synonyms even though they may not be interchangeable is problematic. To explore the semantics of different future vehicle terms we surveyed 963 Michigan residents on their understanding of “autonomous” and “self-driving.” We found significant differences in perceptions between the terms autonomous and self-driving vehicles. While the former invokes many more uncertain responses, the latter is laden with concerns. These results suggest that the language used to describe the next generation of vehicles may shape public reaction and acceptance. As new mobility options are introduced to the public, our understanding of them will be shaped, in part, by the language used to name and explain the technology. Far from being inconsequential, word choice plays a major, yet underappreciated, role in shaping public opinion.

Over the past 25 years, social movements have actively sought out and used new information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the Internet and mobile phones, to give voice to their concerns. The growth of access and use of ICT in the Middle East and North Africa provided resources for protesters and governments to influence political and social events. The widespread availability of the Internet and mobile phones to facilitate organization and action raises the research question of how ICT affects protest movements.

(2019). Smart Cities and Innovative Urban Technologies. Journal of Urban Technology: Vol. 26, Smart Cities and Innovative Urban Technologies, pp. 1-2.