Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Automobiles are a powerful provider of mobility services around the world. Their operation, however, has serious public safety and energy/environmental externalities. Today, automobiles and their complementary infrastructure are evolving to incorporate more and more autonomous technologies that promise to reduce these externalities dramatically. The public interest in these technologies achieving their externality-reducing promise is clear. But the way these technologies improve will inevitably involve trial-and-error, particularly as the relevant algorithms are trained by on-road experience. The public interest in ensuring the safety of the transportation system as autonomous technologies evolve from partial to full automation is also clear. Agencies today, ranging from the US Department of Transportation to departments of motor vehicles at the state level, have to weigh the current and future public interest in their actions to both regulate and promote autonomous technology development in the automotive sector. This paper presents the results of an interview study in which we delve into the on-the-ground practices that agencies employ to keep abreast of technological change while fulfilling agencies missions regarding transportation safety and efficiency. We focus on how public agencies at different levels of government are “muddling through” with respect to human and non-human resource investments as autonomous vehicles develop.