Area 4: Mobility routines and adaptations (passenger and freight)

The ecological transition and climate change are accompanied by major challenges for the mobility of people and goods in Europe, requiring the articulation of sectoral public policies at different scales. These policies focus in particular on promoting clean transport, deploying technological innovations including digital technology, optimizing service offerings and encouraging modal shift. They also involve setting up regional projects and organizing transport services (for people and logistics) to reduce mobility and its negative externalities.

The aim of this line of research is to gain a better understanding of routine mobility behaviours and practices, and to measure the ability of individuals and supply chain companies to change, so as to be in a position to encourage and support these changes. The research questions examine the driving forces behind changes in people's mobility behavior and companies' logistics practices, and shed light on their consequences.

1. Research questions

Axis 4 focuses on knowledge and understanding of mobility routines and how they are modified by disruption and transition factors. This work generates unique knowledge. It is highly complementary to research into mobility in situations of disruption and transition. " nominal" situations, by integrating the dimension of interactions between spaces, taking an interest in all types of scale and mobilizing multidisciplinary approaches. We hypothesize that the ecological transition and climate change are generating a set of evolutions that are as many disruptions and transitions, sources of change in mobility routines, and at the origin of the emergence of new mobility patterns. vulnerabilities and opportunities for which stakeholders must act to reduce or facilitate the effects, while ensuring the resilience of the mobility system. This approach is structured around temporal, socio-economic, spatial and institutional issues.

The organization of this research axis is based on two structuring questions:

Understanding the organization of routines

Deepen the concept of routines, in all their dimensions, using approaches that cross human and social science disciplines to understand the decision-making processes underlying modal preferences, the determinants of conscious or unconscious travel habits, and the trade-offs made by actors according to their needs, constraints and preferences.

Understand changes in behavior/practices in disrupted situations, and longer-term adaptation strategies.

Analyze the repercussions of disrupted situations on mobility routines as part of an evaluation process, whether these effects are the result of unforeseen events, chronic malfunctions, technological or organizational innovations, private strategies such as residential mobility or firm relocation, or private strategies such as the development of new products or services.technological or organizational innovations, private strategies such as residential mobility or firm relocation, or the implementation of public policies. This assessment looks at both the immediate and longer-term effects of disruption.

2. Approaches and scientific challenges

Axis 4 aims to :

• rely on the development of observation methods a) to capture the adaptation practices of players in disrupted situations, b) better defined in terms of analysis territories, types of mobility, services and logistics organizations targeted;
• test the extent to which new data collection systems based on information technologies can be mobilized. (GPS, web or smartphone surveys).
• make greater use of qualitative methods and combine them with quantitative surveys to go beyond the stage of simply observing routines.
• The first scientific hurdle lies in making available data that may be subject to commercial secrecy, and in setting up specific surveys in the freight and passenger sectors, in conjunction with the involvement of private players.The second scientific challenge will be to use the improved understanding of disrupted mobility situations to improve the possibilities for transition to more sustainable mobility: less energy-consuming; less carbon-intensive in terms of its overall balance sheet, but also less necessary in terms of its usefulness.

3. Expected results

• Facilitate public action and contribute to its evaluation through a better understanding of the determinants of individual (in the case of passengers) and entrepreneurial (in the case of freight) choices, and their consequences.
• Involve local authorities and companies upstream, in a long-term partnership approach based on action research.
• Contribute to new knowledge on mobility, data collection methods and systems adapted to certain types of territories, populations, situations, services, logistics organizations, etc.