Socio-technical transition governance and public opinion: The case of passenger transport in Finland

•There is a case for more systematic public engagement in transition management.•We discuss this using Finnish public opinion data on low carbon transport innovation.•We show significant geographic and demographic differences in public opinion.•This has implications for the legitimacy of transition management processes.•Opinion surveys can play a role in building wider policy legitimacy.

As a governance perspective, transition management views the engagement of a wide variety of stakeholders in policy development as a necessary element in furthering sustainability through enhanced social learning. Yet as a literature it has paid relatively little attention to public consultation on socio-technical change. Here we set transition management in the context of longstanding debates in science and technology studies, technology assessment and deliberative democracy. Empirically, we use national survey data on Finnish public opinion of state support for future transport options. Showing how transport practices and attitudes to transport innovation policy vary with both demography and geography, we argue that these differences have implications for policy legitimacy. We suggest that, both given and despite the practical difficulties of deliberative democracy, use of participative opinion surveying to better understand social groups with needs and interests that differ from national averages, may help to enhance policy legitimacy and hence the success of transition management.