As an emerging technology, the potential deployment of self-driving vehicles (SDVs) in cities is attributed with significant uncertainties and anticipated consequences requiring responsible governance of innovation processes. Despite a growing number of studies on policies and governance arrangements for managing the introduction of SDVs, there is a gap in understanding about country-specific governance strategies and approaches. This chapter addresses this gap by presenting a comparative analysis of SDV-related policy documents in Finland, UK, and Germany, three countries which are actively seeking to promote the introduction of SDVs and which have distinct administrative traditions. Our analytical framework is based on the set of premises about technology as a complex sociotechnical phenomenon, operationalized using governance cultures and sociotechnical imaginaries concepts. Our comparative policy document analysis focuses on the assumed roles for SDV technology, the identified domains and mechanisms of governance, and the assumed actors responsible for steering the development process. The results highlight similarities in pro-automation values across three different countries, while also uncovering important differences outside the domain of traditional transport policy instruments. In addition, the results identify different types of potential technological determinism, which could restrict opportunities for responsiveness and divergent visions of mobility futures in Europe. Concluding with a warning against further depolitization of technological development and a dominant focus on economic growth, we identify several necessary directions for further developing governance and experimentation processes.

This chapter first systematically summarizes the most important findings and policy implications of each of the chapters included in this book volume. Next it synthesizes the overall findings and policy implications, and discusses future avenues for policy making and research. A first conclusion is that the chapters make clear that the ranges in policy relevant implications of AVs, within the scope of each chapter/topic, are still relatively broad. Secondly we conclude that research that is conceptually rich is more valuable for policy making. Thirdly we hypothesize that context matters for the uptake, impacts, and specific system design characteristics of real world AV implementation. Fourth we conclude that research on the global south has been limited so far. Fifth we argue that AVs, shared vehicles and electric vehicles (EVs) might stimulate each other in a positive way, in all directions. Finally we conclude that AVs will have wider societal implications, such as in the area of land use, accessibility, social exclusion, governmental expenditures, the labor market, and the environment. The more indirect the effects of AVs are, the more difficult they are to understand. For policy making a first conclusion is that the issues of ethics, cyber security and data protection deserve way more attention than they currently get. We also conclude that future motorway network extensions might not be no-regret anymore, because of possible congestion reductions due to AVs, but also because of decreasing marginal values of time. Finally we argue that countries that introduce AVs later than other countries can learn a lot from the real world experiences elsewhere.