Lille's citizens share their views on driverless mobility

All cities followed the same participatory protocol and participants’ selection process to ensure the diversity of the territory and different walks of life were represented. April 27 saw the first ever worldwide citizens’ debate on driverless mobility.

Each city had its own reasons for taking part in this worldwide initiative. Lille Metropole saw this as an opportunity to innovate as well as to ensure that future mobility services meet the needs and expectations of citizens. Lille Metropole wishes to use the citizens’ input for its new sustainable urban mobility plan.

Although citizens are quite optimistic about the arrival of driverless mobility (60% of Lille’s participants are looking ahead for it), they expressed concerns and raised questions that need to be answered by public authorities and companies. Here are some of the main issues expressed by participants:

• Will this innovation be available “only for the richest” (as a participant stated)? The question of cost was raised by participants as a warning: this new technology must be accessible for everyone not to create further social divisions based on accessibility!

• What will companies and public authorities do with the personal data of the users? 70% of the participants thinks individual citizens should have control over selling their personal data or forbidding its use.

• Will the deployment of driverless mobility follow the path of an “individual” scenario with people possessing their own driverless vehicle or a collective/shared paradigm? The citizens’ preferred scenarios are collective and/or shared deployment (69% of the participants in Lille).

For more information about Lille's Citizens Debate, click here or contact Théo Fievet.

For information about the Citizens Debate initiative, click here.