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Short abstract:

This paper examines the Intelligent Transport System of Namur (Belgium), which aims to manage urban mobility and regulate the use of transport infrastructure in a centralised way. It discusses the relevance of a control lens to this project.

Long abstract:

Smart city projects and smart technologies are often presented as tools to extend the reach of local administrations. Indeed, the stated goal of many of these projects is to harness urban flows, optimise infrastructure, and steer citizen behaviours, turning the city into a controlled environment. To this end, smart city proponents praise the breadth of data sources that are combined into urban indicators supposed to provide new policy insights to public authorities. These indicators are then used in city dashboards, street furniture and multiple other interactive systems.

In response to this evolution in urban mobilities, several STS scholars have emphasised the messiness of smart environments, characterised by experimentation (Evans et al, 2019), failure (Kitchin and Dodge, 2011) and maintenance (Houston et al, 2019).

My paper aims to address this long-standing theme by comparing the control ambitions of Namur’s “intelligent transport system” (ITS) with its everyday operationalisation. Namur’s system consists of automated number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, surveillance cameras, variable message signs, online platforms, and multiple sensors. It measures travel times on the city’s arterial roads in real time and is designed to guide drivers toward fluid routes. Based on a multisited ethnography including control room observations, participant observations, and 19 semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders, I will first analyse the Namur ITS project architecture using the STS concept of environmentality (Gabrys, 2015) to unravel the construction of a transportation controlled environment. Secondly, I will confront this conceptualisation with the daily exploitation and citizen use of Namur’s STI.