Comparing electric mobility policies to transition science: Transition management already in action?

Driven by sustainability issues as well as economic aspects, governments have been creating and applying policies and regulations with the aim of shifting national personal transport towards electric mobility. In this context, transition science offers insights into the relevant socio-technological systems and the process of transition. This paper gives an overview of transition science, and furthermore presents current policy making by the UK and German governments that aim to manage the shift to electric mobility. A comparison of the two different policies with transition science shows that there is an overlap between the applied policy making and theory, especially for the case of the UK. Although both governments do not explicitly follow transition management their actions can be explained with the help of transition science. However, it should be noted that transition science is still a young field which needs to be further developed in order to provide policy makers with tools that enable them to manage such transitions.