Abstract

The advent of connected vehicles holds the promise to disrupt the road transportation system with the aim of providing safer, more efficient mobility for a more diverse ridership and greater sustainability. However, current technological advances are focused on applying nascent robotic and communication technologies to automate vehicle functions with little regard for how the vehicle might integrate within the broader connected network of smart cars, smart cities, and smart homes, with all of the associated social and technical system components. Safety and mobility are emergent system properties that derive from nonlinear spatiotemporal interactions among all components within the entirety of the road transportation system rather than the performance of any given vehicle or other individual system components. This chapter discusses the need to regard the connected vehicle within a broader sociotechnical framework. A sociotechnical perspective involves creating a detailed system framework, identifying the various social and technical sub-systems to reveal critical interdependencies, and generating hypotheses that can be investigated to identify design requirements and resolve potential conflicts. Methodologies for system analysis and joint optimization are urgently needed to create the foundations that promote positive emergent properties such system safety, resilience, and overall effectiveness.