Public Policies & professional mobility

The number one objective for public policy in this area should be ensuring access to jobs by guaranteeing safe, smooth and comfortable journeys for everyone. In metropolitan areas, where the transport services are good but overcrowded, if not completely saturated, the priorities should be on guaranteeing service reliability and passenger comfort.

Outside of cities, access to jobs is difficult, even impossible, without a car, the costs of which have become prohibitive for some people (in France, a daily commute of 40 kilometres by car is equivalent to a quarter of the minimum wage).

In the major cities, opting for certain development policies, such as the location of housing and/or jobs, or a transport policy designed to reduce car speeds, could reduce both saturation of transport networks and car use, as our research has demonstrated (1).

Employed people who move home or change job (nearly 20% of the total each year) take this new context into account when making their choices.

In areas that are sparsely populated and/or far from areas of employment, where 40% of working people live, acting on development can do very little. The same is true for traditional public transport services. The actions here consists of making daily car use something acceptable, by looking closely at the options in terms of shared transport (bicycles, cars, minibuses, work spaces and home working). In short, we should be looking to share our existing fleet of cars and our use of them.

Measures based on shared use already exist, and have several characteristics. They are part of a coherent combination of diverse actions in different sectors, based on the areas and people to help (social action, housing, transport, employment, etc.).

What’s so unique about these measures is that the focus is on individuals and their needs in terms of employability and the financial, physical and cognitive resources to act and to be mobile. In other words, ensuring that people are physically able to access jobs is a necessary condition for exercising a profession, but is not always sufficient.

As a combination of sectoral actions, these measures mobilise many players, not only from public policy and the regional authorities, but also the private sector – residents, associations and service providers. Both are must work to identify needs and define measures. Their budgetary efficiency lies in the pooling of resources for a given initiative, so that a better service can be provided for the same cost.