Regulation and liability for new mobility services

Mobility systems of the future could be safer, cleaner and just. Or they could generate new risks, increase GHG emissions and air pollution, and entrench new and deeper inequalities. Three ongoing mobility revolutions will determine whether the utopian or the dystopian scenario, or any intermediate variant, will materialize in the next decades: the decarbonisation of the transport sector, the automation of driving tasks and the digitalization of mobility services. The main argument in this chapter is that the key regulatory intervention will be the management of the trade-offs among the three revolutions. Section 2 describes the trade-offs of the three mobility revolutions. They derive from the multiplicity of goals to be pursued, but also depend on the legal tools available in each legal system. Section 3 discusses one example of a regulatory strategy aimed at addressing such trade-offs: the mix of ex-ante regulation and ex-post liability. While most legal systems employ both tools, their relative weight could differ and is likely to be influenced by the interplay of horizontal and sector-specific regimes. The main question is what relevance each specific mix could have for the mobility transitions. Section 4 summarizes the arguments.