Fig. 4: Functions of AV innovation systems emphasized in city-level policy frameworks.
From: Divergent urban pathways to autonomous mobility across thirty Chinese cities
a Temporal evolution of TIS functions emphasized in policies across the three city clusters from 2016 to 2024. Lines show the proportion of policy documents targeting each innovation system function over time. These seven functions present the key innovation-inducing processes in a technology-specific innovation system that policies can potentially address. Guidance of search (F1) sets targets and strategies for technologies and industries at the early stage. Knowledge development and diffusion (F2) involves measures that facilitate learning, such as R&D projects, collaborative innovation platforms, and knowledge sharing events. Experiments (F3) capture policies that enable and promote testing and application of AV technologies in real-world settings. Resource mobilization (F4) covers financial incentives and organizational support to accelerate innovation progress. Market formation (F5) encompasses policies that create favorable ecosystems for niche technologies to deploy and diffuse, including demand cultivation, institutional alignment, and infrastructural readiness. Legitimacy creation (F6) aims to build legislative justification for new technologies and enhance societal acceptance to enable socio-technical transitions. Externalities (F7) refer to policies targeting technological applications, knowledge spillovers, and resource sharing in sectors beyond the automotive sector. Details of each TIS function are explained in Supplementary Table 9. b Static comparison of the distribution of TIS functions emphasized in policy documents in all years. Bar heights represent the relative share of policies addressing each innovation system function as the percentage of the total policies within each cluster.
