Future Automated Mobilities: towards hope, justice, and care

Automated mobilities systems and technologies have been hyped as bringing us safer, more environmentally sustainable, cheaper, more efficient, more convenient and personalised modes of movement – of people, things and other species. 

Yet the hype invested in future automated mobilities consistently fails to deliver their ambitious promises: autonomous driving cars still remain pivoted to come onto our roads; Mobility-as-a-Service systems are still waiting to come about effectively; and people are unsure of whether they would trust an automated system to wirelessly charge their electric car.  

This symposium asks three crucial questions: 

First, why do we need to be careful? Where are the limitations, flaws and inequities, in dominant anticipatory visions and narratives? What could possibly go wrong if we place ADM at the centre of a predictive, automated and data-driven mobilities future? 

Second, how might we anticipate care-full mobilities futures? And what could go right if we do? What might more realistic, ethical and responsible automated mobilities futures might look like? What does safety actually entail when we explore it from the perspective of the diverse groups of people who might encounter ADM in transport mobilities?

Finally, how can attending to these questions help us move us forward into more hopeful mobility futures? What are the shared values that might make this possible? Where and with whom should we be imagining, designing and testing our future automated mobilities? And what should be our first steps to achieve this collectively and collaboratively? 

This interdisciplinary symposium brings together researchers and stakeholders in automated mobilities to share, explore, create and connect. Taking place at RMIT Storey Hall across two days, the event will include panel discussions, creative research workshops, short film screenings, and social events. 

The themes of the symposium include:

• Designing mobilities of care
• Doing good with mobility data
• Disability and automated mobilities
• Interdisciplinary, interspecies, and multi-stakeholder mobilities 

This symposium event is hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society. All activities are free but registration is essential.

Tea and coffee provided. 

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