Autonomous driving paper index

Smartwashing mobility: Governing smart mobility through urban imaginaries

2026-07-24 · Cities

autonomous driving

One-line summary

Visions of the smart city have become increasingly influential in guiding contemporary urban governance, particularly within the domain of mobility, where digital technologies and data-driven systems are expected to enable more sustainable and efficient transport systems.

Engineering notes

Key topics: autonomous driving. See the paper for implementation details and experimental results.

Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充:本站会优先为端到端自动驾驶、BEV感知、3D目标检测、轨迹预测、路径规划、LiDAR感知等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

Visions of the smart city have become increasingly influential in guiding contemporary urban governance, particularly within the domain of mobility, where digital technologies and data-driven systems are expected to enable more sustainable and efficient transport systems. While existing research has highlighted the role of sociotechnical imaginaries in shaping smart city agendas, less attention has been given to how such visions are enacted and made consequential within everyday governance practices. This paper addresses this gap by examining how smart mobility initiatives derive value through their association with dominant imaginaries of smart urban futures. Empirically, the paper analyses four initiatives in Stavanger (Norway) and Gothenburg (Sweden). Drawing on literature on sociotechnical imaginaries and smart urbanism, we conceptualise smartwashing as the process through which initiatives selectively mobilise dominant visions of smartness to enhance legitimacy and political viability. Adopting a project-level perspective, we find that smart mobility projects derive value through interrelated processes of articulating projects through narratives of smartness, mobilising these narratives to advance projects within their political contexts, and aligning projects with existing policy goals and local governance settings, generating legitimacy and support even where their impacts remain partial or uncertain. We thus contend that, rather than deliberate misrepresentation, smartwashing captures the performative use of smartness as a governing frame through which projects are framed and promoted as meaningful and actionable, thereby embedding them within contemporary urban governance.

5.0Engineering value
7.0Research novelty
5.0Business relevance

Links and sources

Need this topic turned into a technical roadmap?

Full Self Driving can prepare a custom autonomous driving literature review, code map, dataset map, and B2B technology assessment.

Request B2B research

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts on this paper.
Login or register to leave a comment