Too much pressure? Driving and restraining forces and pressures relating to the state of connected and autonomous vehicles in cities

•CAV introduction without a larger mobility plan is not seen unconditionally as positive.•There is a perceived lack of consistency in CAV planning between government levels and locations.•Common perceived issue included cities in the future being designed for vehicles rather than people.•CAV pilot projects create valuable networks of politicians, mobility consultants and urban planners.•Groups of sceptics forming around CAVs can represent new social alliances. Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are predicted by many analysts to transform the transport system over the coming decades. Which direction and path this transformation will take remains highly uncertain, as do the related environmental effects. In the present study we examine the introduction of CAVs in cities in terms of the indirect or underlying processes (drivers) and the direct expressions of interest that are related to specific actions, events or processes (pressures). The drivers and pressures are identified in interviews with stakeholders from across the quadruple helix (academia, industry, government and civil society). We then use an analytical framework that combines the drivers and pressures of the DPSIR (Driving forces, Pressures, States, Impacts, Responses) model and force field analysis. This framework is used to map survey data on the strength of the driving and restraining forces and pressures behind the introduction of CAVs in cities, and to identify which stakeholders are involved in this socio-technical transition. Results showed that there was a strong belief across stakeholder groups that CAVs should be connected with mobility planning strategies. This need for planning has been discussed at length in other contexts, and now our results show that respondents find this need is also present in the Swedish context. An unexpected finding was that those who are sceptical to CAVs may form unique groups with a broad range of stakeholder types, for example elderly people, cyclists, people who are concerned because of conspiracies related to new technology, and those who are concerned about environmental effects.