The Driving for Values system is an alternative navigation app that provides car drivers with "social routes" intended to foster public values. For example, by adding information about school zones, traffic jams, wildlife populations and pollution to navigation apps or systems, government authorities can propose specific route options to navigation users. In this way, the system can become a tool for the municipality to organize and regulate the public road space based on values its people find important, such as safety, accessibility, liveability and sustainability.
New research published in the 'Driving for Values' report by the Responsible Sensing Lab (a collaboration between AMS Institute and the City of Amsterdam) presents an in-depth study conducted in collaboration with experts from the Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies (ESDiT) consortium and the Smart Mobility Program of Amsterdam*. Driving for Values builds on insights from the Code the Streets project, which explored how technology can guide traffic flows while respecting public values. It takes this a step further by examining how car navigation systems can support public values such as livability and air quality while preserving drivers' autonomy.
“At Responsible Sensing Lab, we cast our gaze ahead, exploring what Code the Streets—and mobility in our cities—looks like 20, 30 years down the road.”
Fabian Geiser
Project Manager Responsible Sensing Lab
How can Driving for Values benefit the city?
The new research posits that Driving for Values and similar digital systems can significantly impact communities, policy, and industry. For communities, the Driving for Values system aims to improve overall livability, enhancing public health and quality of life. For policymakers, it provides a new tool for managing road space and integrating known public values into city planning. Industry-wise, the research encourages the development of navigation technologies that align with societal goals.
Citizens are also reportedly open to navigation systems altering routes based on real-time information that is relevant to the city. For example, a Dutch study found that 84% of participants indicated they would make room for an ambulance early based on the in-car notification, while 60% of users who were warned about an upcoming school zone said they would adjust their behavior by moderating their speed. And the timing may be ripe: new legislation such as the EU directive on Real-Time Traffic Information, which allows cities to prioritize certain roads for certain road users and obliges service providers such as Google Maps to include such considerations in their applications, provides the legislative framework for such systems to become a reality.
However, systems that directly influence individuals' (in this case, drivers) decisions and behaviors raise ethical questions about values like freedom, autonomy, and justice. Furthermore, citizens can perceive them as intrusive, as they restrict their choices and freedom. These values, therefore, are essential to consider in the design process of such digital systems.
Balancing benefits with ethics
Designing technologies that gain social acceptance and meet moral standards involves more than just integrating values and related design requirements into the design process. It also necessitates verifying whether the proposed design solutions genuinely uphold the values they aim to support, such as autonomy.
To further shed light on how these systems can be ethically balanced, the team conducted seven studies with approximately 65 participants (including citizens of Amsterdam, designers, and researchers). In these studies, participants engaged with different versions of the Driving for Values system and compared their features. The insights from these studies, together with insights gathered from monthly workshops with experts from academia and municipality representatives, are the basis of the report and recommendations
In these iterative studies the team asked participants to interact with prototypes of different versions of the Driving for Values system, each with distinct features. We evaluated how these features affected people’s sense of autonomy as well as the acceptance and acceptability of the system by comparing the systems and features to each other. They then used the insights gathered from the study to inform the design of a new set of prototypes which were again tested with participants.
So, what’s next?
The seven studies, according to the researchers, demonstrate that such systems can systematically incorporate moral values in their design. However, ensuring this happens in practice, several practical recommendations for Amsterdam, or other cities aiming to design and research similar systems, have been formed. Read the full breakdown of recommendations in the report, or see the summary below.
- Promote autonomy:
- Design the system to support the autonomy of drivers and other public space users by offering meaningful options that align with their values. For example, drivers could choose routes that support certain public values or align with personal preferences.
- Develop social route advice:
- Further explore Driving for Values by offering alternative routes that promote public values, but only if they provide enough social benefits to justify potential limitations on driver autonomy.
- Build a trustworthy and transparent system:
- Establish clear communication to build trust, explaining how the system promotes social benefits and how these routes align with the driving context of the city.
- Manage compliance:
- Make the system's usage voluntary, with incentives to encourage drivers to choose socially beneficial routes.
- Ensure democratic control and citizen participation:
- Implement a democratic process to determine which public values the system will promote, involving citizens in system development and allowing feedback, for example.
- Conduct further research:
- Study potential extensions for other road users (like cyclists and pedestrians) and assess ongoing citizen engagement, transparency mechanisms, and appropriate incentives (both positive and negative).
The researchers advise that similar investigations be carried to design technologies that are both socially accepted and morally acceptable. Contact the team if you want to know more!
*In our search for a responsible Code the Streets design, the team collaborated with the innovation team of the municipality of Amsterdam and philosophers from the ESDiT consortium (Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies). This consortium brings together expertise from several universities and partners: TU Delft, Eindhoven University of Technology, City of Amsterdam, University of Twente, Utrecht University, UMC Utrecht, Leiden University, Eindhoven University of Technology, Wageningen University & Research. The team was supported by Chemistry.
