Backcasting as a tool for governing transitions beyond technosolutionism: the Torino2050 and ToMove projects

The paper addresses the complex and multifaceted issue of how planners, public administrations and scholars can approach high-tech transitions, and more generally the governance of transition to desired futures beyond techno-solutionism. The paper first presents the results of the Torino2050 project, which addressed the issue of governing the transition to autonomous driving. It then discusses how a collaborative backcasting approach will be applied in the recently launched ToMove project, which will test an autonomous public transport shuttle and a robot for last-mile delivery in a quasi-superblock testbed area. The project is promoted by the Municipality of Turin and the authors are involved in setting up a participatory scenario planning process. The project is a useful opportunity to actively involve the public administration in the scenario planning process, taking stock of the lessons learnt in the previous Torino2050 project.