Smart mobility innovation policy as boundary work: identifying the challenges of user involvement

In 2013 the Dutch Minister for Infrastructure and Water Management initiated a policy programme that aimed to develop a transition towards smart mobility. A Roadmap was developed to support the policy innovation programme because previous initiatives have failed due to the lack of a strategic document. The Roadmap’s first transition pathway (policy goal) called for a development of a user-centric smart mobility. We analysed how this policy goal has been enacted. We conducted 32 semi-structured interviews with relevant smart mobility practitioners, which we have analysed through our theoretical framework consisting of three boundary concepts: boundary work, boundary objects and boundary organisations. Additionally, we have drawn from the literature on user-involvement. The boundary concepts have led us to identifying two main challenges that led to an unsuccessful realisation of the policy goal. One, the responsibilities for involving users have been transferred to numerous actors, who renegotiated the goals assigned to them by the Ministry, resorting to their old techno-centric innovating ways. The dominance of the techno-centric perspective acted as a barrier and inhibited a successful implementation of a more user-centric approach. Two, a key criterion for successful realisation of the pathway – namely, the support of an organisation specifically held accountable for realising the pathway – was absent. In our conclusion we provide recommendations for a more successful user-inclusion, as well as reflections on the state of the smart mobility policy in The Netherlands.