Urban Autonomy Lab

Urban Autonomy Lab

Helping cities learn, adapt, and govern autonomous mobility.

READ THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY READ THE WHITE PAPER
EXPLORE THE EVIDENCE BASE

The Urban Autonomy Lab is a living research platform built around a comprehensive and dynamic evidence base. Its central white paper, Autonomous Mobility and the Adaptive City, draws on that evidence to set out a governance and investment toolkit for urban autonomous mobility.

The thesis

Autonomous mobility is arriving faster than cities can govern it: commercial robotaxi volume has grown from ~10,000 to ~500,000 rides/week since 2023, and the curve steepened sharply in 2026. Discourse and regulation have focused on the vehicle itself; the unaddressed questions — how to price curb access, the grid utility's role, what replaces downtown parking revenue — reach far beyond transportation. The decisions cities make in the next 12 to 18 months will shape fiscal and spatial outcomes for decades.

Autonomous Mobility has the potential to either create or destroy value in the city via 5 channels. Administrations can influence the outcome on each dimension through proactive governance and policy.

Five value levers

  1. Fiscal

    revenue base, fees, and the public balance sheet

  2. Energy

    grid load, depot charging, and utility coordination

  3. Real estate

    parking-dependent land, depots, and development value

  4. Spatial allocation

    curb, road space, and the public realm

  5. Legitimacy

    public trust, safety confidence, and consent

Each lever carries both value at risk and value created; governance decides which.

One street, many decisions
Isometric line drawing of a city street corner with autonomous vehicles, a delivery robot, drones, a bus stop, an ambulance, pedestrians and a charging depot. Labels mark the governance questions the street raises: curb management and pricing, public transit integration, emergency vehicle preemption, vulnerable road user protection, idling and zombie miles, V2X and fleet-to-fleet communications, direct-to-user logistics, urban airspace, and demand-side management of charging load.
Every label is a governance decision, and today most of them sit in different departments. The white paper sets out how a city can take them together.
Key components

The Paper

An interactive white paper arguing outcomes are set by governance, not technology.

Evidence Base

A continuously updated archive of real-world developments: rulemakings, deployments, incidents, pilots, financing moves.

Coming soon

Workshops and Tools

Working sessions and diagnostics that turn the paper's frameworks into decisions for a specific city, utility or portfolio.

Coming soon

Community and Pilots

Cities, operators, utilities and investors designing and evaluating pilot governance together.

For the people making, financing, and governing autonomous-mobility decisions: city staff and transportation authorities, technologists and operators, utilities, real-estate and infrastructure investors, and economic-development leaders.