Make way for the wealthy? Autonomous vehicles, markets in mobility, and social justice

The development of a 'mobility as a service' model for accessing urban transport via autonomous vehicles may be expected to have far-reaching implications for the economics of road transport. In particular, it would offer a new opportunity to price access to the roads in accordance with the principles of the free market. Once people are paying for mobility on the roads on a 'per trip' basis, it will be possible to offer different levels of access - and service - at different prices. According to hegemonic ideas in the transport planning and economics literature the introduction of such a 'market in mobility' would be an economically efficient way of allocating access to the scarce good of space on the roads. In this paper we draw attention to a number of ethical and political challenges to the appropriateness of the use of such a pricing mechanism in the context of urban mobility.