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Cities are increasingly seen as the places where innovations that can trigger a sociotechnical transition toward urban mobility are emerging and maturing. Processes such as peak car, rail renaissance and cycling boom manifest themselves particularly in cities, and success stories of cities experimenting with specific types of low-energy mobility abound in the academic literature. Nonetheless, innovation is known to be a precarious process requiring favorable circumstances. Using document analysis and in-depth interviews, this study examines the nature of low-energy innovation in the everyday mobility of people in two UK cities with favorable conditions for a transition away from fossil fuels—Brighton and Oxford. It shows that clear differences exist between the two cities in the sorts of innovation that emerge and diffuse as a result of path dependencies, local politics, and financial support from supra-local governments and agencies. While low-energy mobility currently has substantial momentum in both cities, the majority of low-carbon innovations in urban mobility are incremental rather than radical in nature, and their future is often imbued with uncertainty. The autonomy of small- and medium-sized cities as agents in bringing about transformational change toward low-energy urban mobility should not be overestimated.

Mobility is produced by, and reproduces, relationships between people, groups, and things. The number and types of options to move may vary greatly between people, as may the speeds at which people travel. The uneven distributions of social, economic, political, or material power across these relationships, the heterogeneity of human desires and societal visions of the good life, and the finite nature of urban space mean that tensions, conflicts, or compromises around urban mobility are inevitable. This chapter turns to one mode of transport—walking—and findings from qualitative fieldwork in the cities of São Paulo and Vancouver, to exemplify and vivify the connection between conflict and mobilities in the city. Under one's own power and without a protective carapace, walking possesses a degree of vulnerability otherwise avoided when moving more quickly and/or with fortification. We demonstrate that, because of this, both modal segregation and shared space, despite offering some advantages, are associated with shortcomings that leave each limited in their ability to reduce conflict in ways that are equitable and just. In light of this, we argue that pedestrian conflict cannot simply be designed away without awarding to walking a fundamental and central place among transport modes, a repositioning that finds its expression in the use of urban space.

Automated vehicle technologies dominate many visions of future systems of smart mobility. This chapter uses the approach of Transition Management to explore the multi-actor governance processes around automated vehicle technology in the UK, with specific attention being paid to the role of the UK government. It shows the relatively comprehensive approach to automated vehicle innovation that has been adopted by the UK government, emerging across multiple domains including the creation of positive discourses around automation, and facilitation of network building and demonstration projects. Framed by the Transitions Management cycle of strategic, tactical, operational and reflexive activities, the chapter argues for greater integration across the levels of the cycle, and experimentation that moves beyond technological capability, to include the heterogeneous publics, in a more diverse set of roles than the current framing of 'potential technology adopter'. The chapter points to the techno-optimism displayed by governments participating in the international race to automation, often with dual roles as both producers and consumers, and suggest that greater inclusivity, democracy, diversity and openness in the innovation process may contribute to context sensitive implementation.

Contemporary systems of mobility are undergoing a transition towards automation. In the UK, this transition is being led by (often new) partnerships between incumbent manufacturers and new entrants, in collaboration with national governments, local/ regional councils, and research institutions. This paper first offers a framework for analyzing the governance of the transition, adapting ideas from the Transitions Management (TM) perspective, and then applies the framework to ongoing automated vehicle transition dynamics in the UK. The empirical analysis suggests that the UK has adopted a reasonably comprehensive approach to the governing of automated vehicle innovation but that this approach cannot be characterized as sufficiently inclusive, democratic, diverse and open. The lack of inclusivity, democracy, diversity and openness is symptomatic of the post-political character of how the UK's automated mobility transition is being governed. The paper ends with a call for a reconfiguration of the automated vehicle transition in the UK and beyond, so that much more space is created for dissent and for reflexive and comprehensive big picture thinking on (automated) mobility futures.

This paper introduces the theme of the special issue on wellbeing, independence and mobility. We begin with outlining the complexity of each of these notions and then turn towards their interdependence. It is argued that the links between wellbeing, independence and mobility are manifold and contextual in older people's everyday lives: they differ between places, between individuals and across phases in each individual's unique lifecourse. The inherent complexity of those links can be examined fruitfully and understood better if a geographical or environmental analytical perspective is adopted. We also suggest that the interdependence of wellbeing, independence and mobility in later life needs to be understood in the context of neo-liberal governmentality and the creation of particular ways of being and acting for older people. The piece concludes with a brief description of the papers brought together in the special issue.

New technologies are playing an increasingly important part in shaping the development of city transport and the wider built environment. Relatively litt le att ention has, however, been given to how the technologies evolve in social and political terms, so that the public are not just seen as the passive receivers of new technology. Technological transitions are not only about the technology, but also about the social and political implications of innovation and how people respond to the new mobility. Participatory exchange and the policy process are essential parts of that approach. This paper explores the dynamics of how a technological innovation failed as a niche-innovation in terms of the socio-technical transitions framework. It uses the case study of the Mobike dockless bicycle hire scheme in Manchester to illustrate the reasons for failure. These included poor participatory practice in the earlier stages of the scheme, together with the inability of the innovator to respond appropriately through participatory exchange, including the direct participation of the public through the technology, in the implementation stage.

The ride-hailing company Uber has achieved extremely rapid global expansion by means of outmanoeuvring governments, regulators and competitors. The rise of the company has been based on a deliberate strategy of acting as a market disruptive innovator through a user friendly technology and making use of the 'sharing economy'. These attributes are not unique, but are distinctively augmented by a relentless expansionary ambition and an ability to maintain the capacity to innovate. Uber has generated great political controversy, but the challenge for governments and regulators is to embrace the benefits of the disruptive innovator, while adopting an approach that takes into account the full range of impacts. For Uber, the challenge is to maintain its expansionary style as a disruptive innovator, while also redefining on its terms the political and public debate. The case study of London provides important insights into the dynamics of these processes.

With the emergence of behaviour change on political and intellectual agendas in passenger transport, the question of how to understand and intervene in habitual carbon-intensive travel practices has become crucially important. Building primarily on the philosophies of Félix Ravaisson and John Dewey, we outline an approach to travel habits that is more affirmative than prevailing psychological perspectives. Rather than as the automatically cued, repetitive behaviour of individuals, habit is understood here as a generative and propulsive capacity brought about through repetition and belonging to body–mind–world assemblages that exceed the human individual as conventionally understood. The implications of the proposed conceptualisation of habits for behaviour change are also explored. We argue that widespread, durable behaviour change is unlikely to result from the displacement of automaticity by reasoned action alone but instead demands changes in collective customs. Additionally, a narrow focus on breaking carbon-intensive travel habits should be avoided. Not only should the formation of low-carbon habits and associated forms of embodied intelligence be stimulated; it is also important to capitalise on the potential for subtle change inherent to carbon-intensive travel habits in situations where individualised vehicular travel is the only realistic transport option.

Over the past decades, transport researchers and policymakers have devoted increasing attention to questions about justice and equity. Nonetheless, there is still little engagement with theories in political philosophy to frame what justice means in the context of transport policies. This paper reviews key theories of justice (utilitarianism, libertarianism, intuitionism, Rawls' egalitarianism, and Capability Approaches), and critically evaluates the insights they generate when applied to transport. Based on a dialogue between Rawlsian and Capability Approaches, we propose that distributive justice concerns over transport disadvantage and social exclusion should focus primarily on accessibility as a human capability. This means that, in policy evaluation, a detailed analysis of distributional effects of transport policies should consider minimum standards of accessibility to key destinations and the extent of which these policies respect individuals' rights and prioritize disadvantaged groups, reduce inequalities of opportunities and mitigate transport externalities. A full account of justice in transportation requires a more complete understanding of accessibility than traditional approaches have been able to deliver to date.

This paper seeks to develop a deeper understanding of the research on climate change mitigation in transport. We suggest that work to date has focused on the effects of improvements in transport technologies, changes in the price of transport, physical infrastructure provision, behavioural change and alternative institutional arrangements for governing transport systems. In terms of research methodologies, positivist and quantitative analysis prevails, although there are signs of experimentation with non-positivist epistemologies and participatory methods. These particular engagements with climate change mitigation reflect mutually reinforcing tendencies within and beyond the academic transport community. We first draw on a revised version of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science to explore the path dependencies within transport studies, which are at least partly responsible for the predisposition towards quantitative modelling and technology, pricing and infrastructure oriented interventions in transport systems. We then employ the governmentality perspective to examine how transport academics' engagements with climate change mitigation depend on and align with more general understandings of climate change in UK society and beyond. The analysis makes clear that ecological modernisation and neo-liberal governmentality more generally provide the context for the current focus on and belief in technological, behaviour change, and especially market-based mitigation strategies. While current research trajectories are important and insightful, we believe that a deeper engagement with theoretical insights from the social sciences will produce richer understandings of transport mitigation in transport and briefly outline some of the contributions thinking on socio-technical transitions and practice theories can make.