The Social Construction of a Technological Project: The Case of Intelligent Transport

Varia
By Jean-Luc Ygnace
English

Since the late 1980s a new view of transport has developed in France and the rest of the world, in which technological solutions are placed at the heart of a system combining academic research, industry, and transport ministries. The author of this article shows how Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are becoming a key feature of modernity in which actors, often within international associations, develop a representation of the frames of mobility of humans and goods. These frames are usually situated outside social controversies and it is left to the market to sort out the negative externalities of mobility. The products and services reflecting this view of ITS remain dependent on the forms of partnership between the actors of the public and private spheres. This article also presents the quasi-epistemic actors and networks of this construction, and suggests that ITS herald the establishment of new norms and controls of mobility, rather than new spatial embedding of movement.

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