Sustainable mobility

Reducing the carbon footprint of human activities has been at the heart of society's concerns for several years. Mobility is a fundamental pillar of the economy and accounts for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. In France, it is responsible for almost a third of these emissions. Moving towards sustainable, carbon-neutral mobility is becoming urgent. But what kind of mobility are we talking about? What levers can be activated to achieve this objective?

Credit: https://fr.freepik.com/vecteurs/technologie - Macrovector - fr.freepik.com

​​Mobility, a major lever in reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Reducing the carbon footprint of human activities has been at the heart of society's concerns for several years. Mobility is a fundamental pillar of the economy and accounts for a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions:

• 16% at global level
• 25% at the European level
• 30% in France

Mobility is therefore a major lever in reducing carbon impact. However, it can be complex to analyse. It is necessary to distinguish between the mobility of people and goods, professional and personal mobility as well as local and long-distance mobility. A few figures to make it clearer:

• The mobility of people represents 90% of emissions concentrated on road transport modes.
• Business travel accounts for 60% of the distances travelled by individuals.
• In this way, 70% of people's journeys are made at a local level.

To effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is therefore necessary to act as a priority on the professional and local mobility of people. The launch of large-scale soft mobility, the greening of business vehicle fleets and MaaS are all solutions that have been implemented to move towards carbon-neutral mobility. But are they sufficient and effective?

Is sustainable mobility a priority for users?

Keoscopie, the Keolis group's mobility observatory, has conducted a study to measure the impact of the health crisis on mobility and lifestyles. The results of the survey highlighted the increased expectations of users for a safe and sustainable mobility offer. Concerned about the assurance of health safety on public transport, many of them are in favour of soft mobility. In March 2021, 47% of Île de France residents preferred walking and 26% used bicycles or scooters to get around on a daily basis.

However, the Keoscopie study also showed that car ownership are still very much a part of personal mobility habits. Self-driving refers to driving alone in a car, a very common practice, especially for business trips.

With 94% of CO2 emissions coming from road transport, 55% of which come from private cars, self-driving cars are a real environmental problem.

To curb this phenomenon, Keolis intends to offer a quality public transport service, without including the car, in both large cities and small towns. To do this, the offer must be broad and continuous and must adapt to needs of users, for example by proposing new payment offers with dematerialised tickets. However, the modal shift from private car use towards public transport is only truly virtuous if the latter reduces its carbon footprint. Keolis has thus undertaken to increase its fleet of electric vehicles fourfold in one year.

Major innovations to reduce CO2 emissions

More than an environmental issue, self-driving car is also a way of life. In this sense, the electric car and the car-sharing scheme are two important innovations that can help to achieve a sustainable reduction in CO2 emissions.

• The electric car appears to be a solid solution for sustainable low-carbon mobility. Technological progress has made it possible to considerably improve its autonomy. For example, the first Renault ZOEs had a real range of 210 km, compared with 400 km for the new models today. However, a lack of infrastructure is holding back its development. Although the volume of electric cars is increasing, charging stations are not yet widespread enough throughout the country to allow optimal and continuous use by all motorists. Potential buyers who do not have a car park are also confronted with this problem of charging points. The electric car thus highlights the difficulties of adapting cities to technological speed.

Car sharing is also a popular measure by cities, but also by companies. By allowing users to have a car only when they need it, car-sharing fits perfectly into a multimodal transport offer. However, in order to operate under calm conditions, it is essential to adapt car-sharing policies. The current lack of legislation is an obstacle to its development. Legislative advances are therefore expected to enable this new form of mobility to continue.

Local authorities and individuals are not the only actors to seize technological advances to change mobility habits. Businesses are becoming increasingly active in supporting change towards sustainable mobility.

Work mobility: more and more companies are committing to carbon neutrality

Business travel accounts for 60% of the distances travelled by individuals. Professional mobility is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In a study by the Arval mobility observatory of the BNP Paribas group, 71% of the companies questioned had already implemented sustainable mobility measures. There are many issues at stake: a better corporate image, greater employee well-being and also a way of attracting talent.

The Arval study shows that the car is still a key element in corporate mobility. To reduce their carbon footprint, companies have identified two solutions: greening their vehicle fleets and car-sharing.

• With regard to the greening of fleets, 42% of the companies surveyed have implemented alternative modes of transport or are planning to do so. This may involve the acquisition of electric cars, electrical assisted bicycles or new individual electric vehicles (scooters, hoverboards, gyropods, etc.).

• For car-sharing, the idea is to allow employees to have access to a car when they need it but to have the possibility of using other modes of transport if they wish. The idea is to develop a mobility hub, a sort of multimodal transport offer to facilitate low-carbon mobility within a company.

Sources

On 20 May 2021, Qucit attended a conference on sustainable mobility at Autonomy Digital 2.0.

This conference was an opportunity to deepen our knowledge on this highly topical subject and to identify the levers of action to move towards greenhouse gas emission neutral mobility.

Speakers :

• Mehdi Essaidi - Smart Mobility Director, Capgemini Invent
• Ronan Perrier - Head of Mobility for Corporates, Arval BNP Paribas Group
• Vincent Carré - Car-sharing Operation Director, Mobilize
• Pierre Gosser - Industrial Executive Director, Keolis
• Ralf Engel - "New Mobility" Advisor to the DGS, Programme Director - Région Nouvelle Aquitaine

Raphaël CHERRIER 31 mai 2021