Inclusion by design, exclusion in practice: Politics of inclusion in innovating future mobility systems in Taipei's living lab

Urban living labs have become an important instrument for cities in East Asia to innovate transport technology and governance. Taipei combines its living lab approach with smart city initiatives and proposes the vision of the ‘City as a Living Lab’. A key emphasis has been forming collaborative relationships with people and organisations outside the municipality to include diverse values and experiences in innovation processes. Urban living labs outside Western contexts have become popular but have only received limited attention. The paper contributes to the literature by exploring Taipei's living labs for transportation innovation and suggests the importance of examining the politics of inclusion in action. The empirical research charts how Taipei has designed, implemented and tweaked its living lab approach to innovate intelligent mobility systems. The analysis demonstrates how the vision of inclusion becomes complicated by the simultaneous pursuits of innovation in technology, governance and infrastructure. Building on the case study of Taipei, the paper urges to pay greater attention to the epistemological, ontological, material and regulatory arrangements that enact inclusion and exclusion in urban living labs.