CODATU gets involved in the discussion about improving multimodal hubs

Which
interfaces to facilitate the mode shift and make it pleasant?

On March 28th, 2018, in Paris, CODATU participated in a workshop organized by La Fabrique des Mobilites about multimodal hubs and their improvement thanks to digital technologies and commons. The workshop consisted in identifying citizen practices and putting forward commons able to facilitate the modal shift.

The half-day event started with 2 presentations which served as an introduction:

• Amandine Crambes (ADEME) and Bruno Marzloff (Chronos) presented the results of the first study led by the Observatory for Emerging Uses of the City, which looks at the way citizens (french, german, british, italian) apprehend the “city of tomorrow”. This study highlights several interesting facts: a disaffection of the “smart-city” as compared to the “city-nature” (at human scale), a plebiscite of private car for daily commutes, a willingness to share equipments among neighbours (garden, work space, garage, spare room…), a multiplication of the city operators (example of the subsidiary of Google City, SideWalkLabs).
• Caroline Beaulieu from ForCity presented the R City software, with the example of a ongoing project between Bourget airport and Roissy CDG airport. R City provides a modeling of the city (transport networks, energy, electricity…) and intends to (i) build a shared vision of the territory among all stakeholders, (ii) anticipate the impacts of the newly implemented projects, and (iii) help local authorities in the decision-making process. The tool is accessible in SaaS mode (passwork, user account).

Based on these presentations, participants were invited to make groups and think about the profile of a Persona (age, family and professional situation, mobility constraints/needs…), as well as the innovative solutions that could improve his/her current situation. The objective was to put forward idead of projects that could be developed and implemented by the Fabrique des Mobilités network. Here below are few of the outcomes:

• Patrick and Amelie, parents of a 2-years-old child, are struggling to drop/pick-up their child at the day-care because it is not on their way to office and implies an additional trip by bus. The group suggests to build an annex of the day-care at the Cergy Saint Christophe RER station in order to centralise the drop-off. Children are then spread between the different day-care buildings.
• Justin, 45 years-old, father of 2 kids, lives in a small town of 2,000 inhabitants and relies at 70% on cars to drive his children to school and go to office. To facilitate his access to public transport, the group suggests to create 3 levels of mobility hubs: a first one at the rural level, close to the user, with basic amenities (light, heater, parking, seat) which may be integrated to existing infrastructures (bus stops, car-pooling zones, fuel station, train station…); a second one at the suburbain level, which an extended version of the rural hub with additional services (locker, restaurants, groceries, cycle repair shop, delivery points…); a third one at the city level, which integrates even more services and mobility solutions. In a nutshell, authorities must focus more on rural areas.

Several initiatives along these lines have emerged these past few months. This is the case of Blablacar and JC Decaux who signed an agreement in Toulouse and Montauban (France) to make bus stops available to Blablalines (home-office trip). This is also the case of the city of Paris which announced the creation of 1,000 additional Park&Ride lots from September 2018 for an attractive price of 75 euros/month. Finally, Ecov, a start-up which proposes car-sharing solutions in suburban and rural areas, in thinking in the same lines, with its CEO Thomas Montagne stating that “available seats in a car is a wonderful ressource to develop public transport“. However, Ecov notices that existing car-sharing options are not accessible to non-smartphone users, and remain quite difficult to use. To offer a more accessible and easier system, Ecov provides connected screens on major roads. Any pedestrian can enter its destination. The screen mentions the duration and cost of the trip, and displays a notice to the drivers. Whoever interested can stop and pick-up the pedestrian. Until now, 14 stations have been implemented in Val d’Oise (France). CODATU will follow this up and update you!