IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 7

at the appointed times, and does
not require parking or waiting. It all
sounds quite pro-social, possibly
utopian:6 what's not to like?
In fact, there is much not to like.
As with all business models based
on *-as-a-service, whether or not
the technology to deliver it turns
out to be a public good is a question of ownership, and in particular transparency of ownership. It is
necessary to determine who owns
the infrastructure, who owns the
objects that are operating on the
infrastructure, who owns the platform, and who owns the data that is
generated by operation of the infrastructure - and determine who is
benefitting from this ownership, and
by how much. The problem is that
private and opaque ownership and
provision of mobility-as-a-service is
potentially fraught with problems.
There are many reasons for this.
Firstly, the arguments against
private ownership of the means
of social coordination have been
strongly made in prior work [9]. The
opportunities for successful collective action are diminished, the distribution of benefits between the
service users and the platform/service provider is asymmetric, and the
"market" dominated by a few organizations who wield disproportionate
and unaccountable social and political power.
Secondly, mobility is critical to
the economic well-being of both
cities and regions [10]. Restricting

mobility privately-owned driverless
data should not disappear behind a
cars while mass urban transporcorporate firewall and only be availtation is eliminated as an option
able for analytics by the corporapresents another opportunity for
tion itself. In a closed system, the
transnational corporations to insert
control (and in fact the potential for
their corporate proboscis into the
manipulation and misrepresentasocial economy of a local commution) of information is concentrated
nity and suck the lifeblood from it
in an un-elected and unaccountable
[11]. Some online transportation
external body.
companies charge as much as 25%
Fifthly, there is a concern of what
commission for each journey taken:
happens in case of systemic failure.
this means that currency, as a force
Suppose there is an accident: who
multiplier for creating loose ties
is responsible for paying for and
in a social network, is diminished
provisioning emergency services?
by a quarter. A local economy can
Typically in situations where profit
wither away when these loose ties
is privatized and risk is socialized,
are untangled.
the platform- and service-provider
Moreover, mobility can
be a public service for a
prosocial public good, and
arguably should be subsidized as such. Anyone could
The whole personal car ownership
run a profit-maximizing bus
company if they only ran
model is completely absurd.
ser vices dur ing mor ning
and evening rush hours with
nothing in between, and had all
abnegates responsibility for events
their drivers on zero-hours contracts
occurring on the infrastructure, and
so they were only employed and paid
claims that it merely provides an
for those hours. Seeing each indiaccess point to that infrastructure.
vidual's mobility as simply a revSixthly, there is the underminenue stream and not appreciating
ing of "democratization." Democraits semantics and its contribution to
tization here means ensuring that
collective civil enterprise is entirely
decision-making with respect to
reductionist and devoid of humanity.
self-determination is as close to
Thirdly, there is a question of
the edge of the network as possi"road neutrality." Mirroring the issue
ble: in this case, it should rest with
of net neutrality, each car on the road
the individual traveler. Who gets
network should be treated equally,
to be mobile, and who does not,
the same way that each packet on the
might be dependent on whether
Internet is treated equally. Discrimior not there are resources availnating between journeys by desigable ("error 396: car not found"?)
nating some as more important than
but with a centralized system lackothers, or creating "markets" where
ing transparency it could also be
none exists (there are proposals for
because of an inverted denial of
the occupants of driverless cars to
service - the platform has cenbid for resources, like priority at juncsored or prohibited the mobility of
tions, speed, and so on) undermines
the service user, and it would be
the concept of a public infrastructure
impossible to tell the difference.
offering a common experience to all.
Finally, the restriction of physical
Fourthly, transportation data is
mobility diminishes social mobility.
essential for urban planning. This
It is no surprise that those wishing

6

This Pervasive Day [7] examined the technology portrayed in the human-society-controlledby-computer dystopian novel This Perfect Day
[8] to evaluate how close the reality of 2012
had been to the imagination in 1970. Although
many aspects were covered, from wearables
to implants, transportation was not addressed,
indicating just how far and how quickly the
concept of the driverless car has come in recent
years. However, the predominant forms of transportation in the book were planes (mass) and
bicycles (personal), and the car was considered
dirty, dangerous and in fact superfluous. Control people's lives and you can limit their mobility; reciprocally, limiting their mobility can help
control people's lives.

JUNE 2019

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IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

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