RESEARCH NOTES

What does it mean to be less mobile? Insights from the COVID-19 lockdown

Anna Nikolaeva, Ying-Tzu Lin, Samuel Nello-Deakin, Ori Rubin, Kim Carlotta von Schönfeld

25/05/2023

What does daily mobility mean to us? What would we miss if we had to reduce or significantly change our everyday movements? What would we gain? Most importantly, what opportunities and challenges would this create for designing and implementing low-carbon transition policies? The COVID-19 lockdowns offered a unique opportunity to address these questions. Our research shows that daily mobility plays a complex and ambivalent role in people's lives. While some aspects of mobility are seen as a burden, other meanings of mobility are so important that people seek “compensatory mobilities” to make up for missed experiences. This has implications for low-carbon mobility transitions.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

RESEARCH NOTES

Cycling and walking: literature review

Renate Albrecher, Sonia Curnier, Vincent Kaufmann

20/03/2023

Recent surveys by the Mobile Lives Forum show that around 30% of the French population live locally, yet many trips under 5 km are made by car. There is therefore huge potential for a modal shift to active modes of transport. The purpose of this research note is to provide a thorough understanding of this paradox. It aims to explore, through a detailed overview of the current research in social sciences and urban planning, the ingredients that are likely to enable people to lead lifestyles in which walking and cycling are more regularly practised as a means of transport in daily life. This review allowed us to identify research questions that have already been well studied, as well as some…

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

Women's mobility: literature review

Mobile Lives Forum

07/03/2023

For centuries, women and men have been assigned different characteristics and social roles: women have been associated with managing the household, the children and the private sphere, while the public sphere remained a male perogative. These different social roles have resulted in a power imbalance that favours men. The Mobile Lives Forum wanted to explore its consequences on men and women’s mobility, by reviewing the literature on women’s mobility. This work is based on French and international references.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

100 “metro” networks to serve the whole of France

Pierre Helwig

31/01/2023

For us to truly be able to stop using private cars and seriously address the climate crisis, we need to end our current political inaction in an effective and systematic way. Pierre Helwig calls for mobility in France to be radically reinvented by using existing infrastructures to develop collective and active modes, and by proactively pursuing land planning policies aimed at reducing and rationalising travel. He thereby delivers an ambitious, credible and quantified roadmap to achieve France’s carbon goals.

Thematics : Policies

OPINIONS

Cycling policies: Lessons from Seville

Ricardo Marqués

21/11/2022

The city of Seville is unique for its success in promoting cycling as an integral part of its urban mobility in only five years (2006-2011), through the implementation of a well-designed, safe and comfortable network of cycle paths covering all the city. This achievement, however, has not been followed by a substantial improvement of cycling mobility in the years since. This article analyses the political, social and infrastructural causes behind this success and the following stagnation, including the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in this evolution. The author feels that both positive and negative lessons may be extracted from this analysis, which may be useful for other similar cities.

Thematics : Policies, Theories

OPINIONS

Commuter support schemes: the case for a review in light of the transition

Jean-Pierre Orfeuil

07/11/2022

Many commuter support schemes were implemented long before the recent surge in oil prices, for reasons that have since become obsolete due to the need to transition towards low carbon mobilities. This article identifies these schemes, assesses their impact on CO2 emissions and public finances, and offers pathways away from them, guided by public acceptability, fairness and environmental efficiency.

Thematics : Policies

NEW VOICES

Utopias of slow cycling: Imagining a bicycle system

Ioan-Cosmin Popan

10/10/2022

In his quest for a society that would reverse the logic of speed that governs cities today, Ioan-Cosmin Popan starts by imagining slow cycling. In this thesis, original in both its form, which borrows from utopian literature, and in its criticism of the prevailing utilitarianism, Popan lays the foundations for creating a new society and addressing the urgent need to reduce emissions. This work received the 2021 New Voices Award from the Mobile Lives Forum.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

LIVRES

Energy and Rhythm. Rhythmanalysis for a Low Carbon Future, by Gordon Walker

Sylvain Allemand

12/09/2022

Energy is not only a question of techniques and uses, but also of rhythms. This is what geographer Gordon Walker, a professor at the Lancaster Environment Center, argues by taking into account social rhythms as well as bodily and cosmological rhythms. These rhythms have been directly impacted by what he calls "techno-energies", i.e. fossil fuels exploited on a large scale since the start of the industrial revolution. How can reading Energy and Rhythm. Rhythmanalysis for a Low Carbon Future, published in 2021, shed light on the path towards a more resilient socio-technical systems in the light of the ecological and climate crises ?

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

OPINIONS

What price are we willing to pay to curb carbon emissions?

Yves Crozet

05/09/2022

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) - especially carbon dioxide (C02) - has become a pressing matter for public policies. Different tools are available to pursue it, such as regulations and subsidies. But how should the “price of carbon” be determined and then integrated into the economic decisions of private and public actors? What do current economic policies tell us? And how could quantity regulation become an essential tool alongside pricing measures?

Thematics : Policies, Theories

RESEARCH NOTES

The rationales that underlie modal practices

Vincent Kaufmann

04/07/2022

Encouraging a modal shift from individual transportation to less polluting modes such as public transport, walking and cycling, is now a key recommendation of the UN to reach the goals set by the Paris Agreement. Achieving this ambitious goal requires a detailed understanding of the reasons behind modal practices. Why do some prefer the car to the train, or the bicycle to the bus? What factors lie behind these practices? This report summarizes the main results of a research project (carried out before the Covid 19 pandmic) on the motivations that govern modal practices in the cities of Bern, Geneva and Lausanne.

NEW VOICES

Accounting for Housing and Transportation Cost when private professionals are searching for a domestic property

Maria Besselièvre

31/05/2022

Residential choice has been well analyzed. But less is known about the role played by private real estate professionals – who are the main contact for households looking to buy property – and even less about their consideration of Housing and Transportation Cost, i.e. the expenses in terms of housing and daily mobility borne by households once in their new home. Maria Besselièvre approached this subject by meeting households and professionals from Grésivaudan, an attractive valley linking Grenoble and Chambéry. This work received the 2021 New Voices Award from the Mobile Lives Forum.

NEW VOICES

Unfixing the City: Rickshaw Mobilities, Modernities and Urban Change in Dhaka

Annemiek Prins

25/05/2022

It is almost impossible to imagine the streets of Dhaka without the colourful shape of the cycle-rickshaw. Or without the hundreds of thousands of drivers who operate the rickshaw across the dense and congested streets of Bangladesh’s capital city. Despite this overwhelming presence, the vehicle is strikingly absent from plans, policies, and visions for the urban future of Dhaka. This thesis tries to make sense of this discrepancy and examines how the mobilities and employment projects of cycle-rickshaw drivers unfold amidst efforts to ban and restrict the presence of the rickshaw in Dhaka. This work received the 2021 New Voices Award from the Mobile Lives Forum.