A Framework for Building Integrative Scenarios of Autonomous Vehicle Technology Application and Impacts, using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM)

Currently, Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology is considered a potentially life-changing new technology that brings science fiction to life and can fundamentally impact how and where people live and work. As is the case with any new technology, it is unknown how the future will unfold. Instead, ideas about the future can be captured through scenario planning and used to develop a range of plausible, alternative futures (or scenarios). These scenarios can be used for strategic decision-making in technology and urban planning, transportation and business. Because policy makers, technology developers, and end-users all need to make assumptions about future AV technology, there is a growing number of research on possible future developments, that each represent the unique perspective of the different stakeholder groups. However, an integration of these pieces of the puzzle into a holistic view of alternatives futures (i.e. scenarios) is still lacking. We propose a framework for scenario planning that leverages the insights from existing work on AV technology, and integrates the many perspective with the system-modeling technique of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM). We apply the framework in a case study. The work thus introduces a new approach to tackling the challenging problem of scenario planning for emerging technologies with many impacts. It also provides a review of the current status of AV technology.