The Governance of Sustainable Sociotechnical Transitions: Some Lessons from the Small Aircraft Transportation System Maurie J. Cohen Sustainability Research

The Governance of Sustainable Sociotechnical Transitions: Some Lessons from the Small Aircraft

Transportation System

Maurie J. Cohen

Sustainability Research InstituteUniversity of Leeds

and

Graduate Program in Environmental Policy StudiesNew Jersey Institute of Technology

Unsustainability and the Management of Sociotechnical Transitions

NASA aims to improve the mobility of U.S. citizens by reducing travel time for both short and long journeys. This requires a wide range of innovations and improvements. For example, NASA is working on methods to integrate small aircraft and public use landing facilities into the National Air Transportation System to significantly reduce travel time into and out of every community.

—NASA, Strategic Plan, 2000


Research on prospective transitions has tended to focus on “sustainable” sociotechnical systems.


Given the relative abundance of various ongoing unsustainable transitions and the scarcity of sustainable ones, focusing only on the latter type

substantially narrows opportunities for learning.


1. The study of unsustainable transitions can inform our understanding of how to facilitate sustainable sociotechnical transitions.


2. The challenge of sustainability entails not only efforts to foster sustainable sociotechnical transitions; it also requires corresponding

strategies to bend what are otherwise unsustainable trends.

Source: Climate Protection Campaign


3. From the consumption side, all consumers are not equal; affluent consumers have unique ability to shape sociotechnical transitions and their

practices demand a special measure of attention.

The New Aeromobility

Contemporary Aviation Trends of Relevance to Scholars and Policymakers Interested in

Sociotechnical Transitions

• Long-distance commuting by air (e.g., work in London; live in New York).

• Frequent air travel to holiday/weekend-home destinations.

• Proliferation of discount airlines (e.g., Ryan Air, Easy Jet, Jet Blue).

• Increasing congestion as aviation system reaches operational capacity (not unlike the surface transport system).

• Expansion of personal (customized) aeromobility services.

Personal Aeromobility

Private jets


United States Companies Operating Fixed Wing Turbine Business Aircraft and Number of Aircraft, 1991-2003

-

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

Nu

mb

er

Operations Aircraft

Source: National Business Aviation Association


Fractional ownership schemes


Total Number of Fractional Shares, 1986-2003

-

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

198619871988198919901991199219931994199519961997199819992000200120022003

Nu

mb

er

Source: National Business Aviation Association


Flight-time cards


Air taxis

Small Aircraft Transportation System

• Implement in the near term a new system of aviation based on the use of a new generation of microjets (2-10 passengers + hired pilot).

• Utilize the existing network of small and underutilized community-based airports (approximately 5,000 in the US alone).

• Provide on-demand, point-to-point service.

• Develop over the longer term (25 years) the operational controls and ancillary technologies for a small aircraft transportation system based on self-piloted airplanes.


National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) (approximately 3300 facilities)


• Implement in the near term a new system of aviation based on the use of a new generation of microjets (2-10 passengers + hired pilot).

• Utilize the existing network of small and underutilized community-based airports (approximately 5,000 in the US alone).

• Provide on-demand, point-to-point service.

• Develop over the longer term (25 years) the operational controls and ancillary technologies for a small aircraft transportation system based on self-piloted airplanes.


While this vision obviously stands in opposition to conventional perspectives of a “sustainable” mobility future, it would seem to be no

less plausible an alternative.

Sociotechnical Transitions and Expert Assessment

Expert assessment is an institutionalized aspect of research and development programming.


Effective governance of sociotechnical transitions involves periodic appraisal by expert panels and the decisions of these committees can be

critical to the viability of long-term R&D programs.

National Research Council Study of SATS

Cognitive Traps and Long-Term R&D Programs

A cognitive trap is a bias in analytic perspective or a lapse in interpretive judgment that stems from an overly insular framing of the issues at hand.

Seven Generic “Traps” Associated with the Expert Assessment of Long-Term R&D Programs

• Trap of Disciplinary Reductionism

• Trap of Economic Determinism

• Trap of Contemporary Immutability

• Trap of Political Neutrality

• Trap of Societal Rigidity

• Trap of Sociological Indifference

• Trap of Historical Blindness

1. Trap of Disciplinary Reductionism

Singular emphasis on discipline-focused methods of inquiry and poor understanding of systems—particularly the interface between technological

and social systems.

2. Trap of Economic Determinism

False presumption that human behavior is exclusively guided by economic decision making.

3. Trap of Contemporary Immutability

The doubtful notion that the future will be essentially like the present and such circumstances make straight-line extrapolations an acceptable

methodological approach.

4. Trap of Political Neutrality

The claim that engineered configurations and regulatory systems are politically neutral assemblages comprised of technical components and

apolitical rule-making decisions.

5. Trap of Social Rigidity

Misconception that social organization and prevailing political commitments are more or less indomitable and that human beings have

poor capacity for resilience and malleability.

6. Trap of Sociological Indifference

A preoccupation with economically motivated behavior can contribute to a blinkered understanding of the socially informed drivers that animate

human actions (e.g., status striving, conspicuous consumption, mimetic performance).

7. Trap of Historical Blindness

Failure to give credence to historical precedents and how sociotechnical systems have evolved in the past.

Norman Bel Geddes' Flying Car, 1945


How should we design “best practice” procedures for conducting expert assessments of sociotechnical transitions?

• Mobilize a broadly constituted range of expertise.

• Combine disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary breadth.

• Design institutional frameworks that facilitate the evenhanded airing of perspectives.

• Foster capacity among participants for reflexivity regarding their own organizational dynamics.

Documents

The Governance of Sustainable Sociotechnical Transitions: Some Lessons from the Small Aircraft Transportation System Maurie J. Cohen Sustainability Research