A roadmap for the sustainable deployment of autonomous vehicles: Superblocks driving cars out of neighbourhoods

This chapter presents a policy pathway aimed at steering the transition to autonomous driving – a relevant manifestation of the emergence of AI in the management and development of cities – towards objectives of urban livability and sustainability. First, the possible positive and negative effects of the diffusion of autonomous vehicles are described in all their uncertainty, and the need for public administrations to govern the intensity and direction of these impacts is highlighted. On these terms, a backcasting approach is tested on the Italian city of Turin; a vision for the city in 2050 and a policy pathway to achieve it are presented. The analysis of this backcasting process and its results show how a technological innovation such as autonomous driving can be a Trojan horse to promote a more sustainable mobility system and liveable urban environment even in the short-medium term, with human-driven cars. At the same time, it makes evident that immediate action is needed to steer the transition to autonomous driving in the long term, rather than passively accommodating it.