Sociotechnical expectations of vehicle automation in the UK trucking sector
基于61份深度访谈，研究了英国货运行业从业者对卡车自动化的个人期望，发现期望受职业经验和行业变化影响，且在时间表达、高速公路适用性、卡车编队可行性及司机角色上存在差异。
Expectations about emerging innovations are an important part of innovation pathways that can help to overcome uncertainties and build hype. Such sociotechnical expectations have been studied extensively by social scientists but the focus is often on collective, widely shared expectations and much less on individuals' specific expectations. Examining the latter can nonetheless aid understanding of the development of, buy-in into and power dynamics around collective sociotechnical expectations. This paper therefore examines individually articulated expectations about vehicle automation in the trucking industry in the UK. It draws on 61 in-depth interviews with freight transport actors, including truck drivers, freight company management, industry representatives, and representative from government departments. It demonstrates alignment of individual expectations on some aspects of vehicle automation, including the difficulty of expression them in terms of chronological (calendar) time and the belief that automation will be quicker and easier on motorways than on other kinds of road. Multiple differences in expectations are identified, in particular regarding the practical feasibility of truck platooning and the role of truck drivers. In all cases, it is clear that individual expectations are shaped strongly by people's current and past professional experience and practices and how these have been affected by wider technological and organisational changes in the freight and logistics sector.