- Even if the containment has been lifted, the return to normal looks complicated in public transport, where it is more complicated to enforce social distancing. A foreseeable drop in attendance could have long-term effects.
- Should we anticipate a mass transfer on the individual car? "In the immediate future, no doubt," replied economist Pierre-Yves Péguy. Over time, it is less obvious. The car being a mode which is expensive and the incomes of the French are likely to fall. "
- Bicycles and other electric personal transport devices can also fare well. "It was during crises that bikes took off in the Netherlands or Denmark," recalls Olivier Schneider, from the Users' Federation. from the bicycle.
Forty-eight kilometers of traffic jams at 7.46 a.m. It will be the peak of May 11, the first day of deconfinement on the main roads of Ile-de-France. In other words, almost nothing. In normal times, at this time, the average is around 350 kilometers, recalls the graphics of the Direction des routes d'Ile-de-France (Dirif). There were fewer traffic jams again on Tuesday and Wednesday. There were also no bicycle caps.
Road traffic on Tuesday was weaker than yesterday in Île-de-France with a peak around 6 p.m. A good dynamic of progressive deconfinement, for now ...
(Source: Sytadin) #transportsIDF # DeconfinementJour2 pic.twitter.com/TVEDOm5Gqd
And, on the public transport side, if images of crowded trains on line 13 of the metro and on the RER B have circulated, "since Monday, the use of the network is around 15% compared to normal", indicates the RATP.
A very smooth recovery, therefore, in Ile-de-France, at least on the commute. Same table in the region? If there is more traffic on the roads and people in public transport than the last weeks, we are far from a return to normal, we go up the local newsrooms of 20 Minutes [in Lille, Bordeaux, Lyon , Toulouse, Nantes, Marseille, Rennes and Toulouse].
Before the crisis, the ultra-dominant car
Not easy then, in this transitional period, to know which will be the modes of displacement which will be the big winners of the deconfinement. And who will be the big losers. First of all, Pierre-Yves Péguy, director of the Transport Economy Planning Laboratory (CNRS / Université Lyon 2 / ENTPE), recalls the preponderance of the private car in France. "80% of mechanized trips, all reasons combined, are by car," he says. Including in large cities. “In the Lyon metropolitan area [here in the agglomeration sense], the car has a modal share of 42%, says Pierre-Yves Péguy. Follow walking (35%), public transport (around 20%), then, far behind, bikes (1.7%) and motorized two-wheelers (0.5%). "
On the other hand, over the last few years, the dynamic has indeed been in favor of soft mobility in large cities. "Still in Lyon, the modal share of the private car fell by six points between 2006 and 2015, while walking gained two points and public transport four", continues the economist. The modal share of the bicycle has stabilized at around 2% over the same period.
Strong concerns about public transport?
It is this dynamic that the Covid-19 could break. "Inevitably, at least in the short term, people will not rush into public transport where, by definition, it will not be easy to enforce barrier gestures," slips Marie Chéron, mobility manager at the Nicolas Hulot Foundation (FNH ). Users who will be able to move otherwise will do so. This, somewhere, tarnishes the social image of public transportation by making it a mode of transportation. "De facto, respecting the rules of social distancing will also mean that public transport will not have the same passenger carrying capacity as in the past," adds Pierre-Yves Péguy. And if supply declines, so does demand. "
Not anecdotal for the economic balance of public transport, "which is partly based on their occupancy rate," recalls Marie Chéron. It is also based on the mobility payment, paid by companies, according to their payroll, as well as on public subsidies with regard to investments. Two resources that the health crisis could, again, drastically reduce this year and the following.
A return to autosolism?
This makes it a bleak prospect for public transport. To the point that "all the conditions are met for an irreversible return of the supremacy of the individual car?" This is the fear raised by analysts from the Boston Consulting Group in a column published in Le Monde on April 26. Pierre-Yves Péguy is not as positive. "In the short term, yes, we can imagine that some who shared a car yesterday or took public transport opt for autosolisme tomorrow," he says. But our modes of travel are closely correlated with our income. However, certain social categories should see their disposable incomes fall in the coming months, with the foreseeable rise in unemployment and the increase in compulsory levies to cope with a brutal increase in public debt since the start of the crisis. In this context, are there more French people ready to opt for the private car, an expensive mode of transport to purchase and use? Not sure. "
"In the Netherlands or Denmark, the bicycle has benefited from the crisis"
It is unlikely, moreover, that mayors will accommodate a massive return of the private car in their city centers. It is perhaps even the most beautiful card in the hands of the defenders of the bicycle to make deconfinement a new boulevard for the practice of cycling in France. Olivier Schneider, president of the Federation of bicycle users (FUB), speaks in any case of an "incredible dynamic" on the side of the State and communities. "Even cities that have lagged behind on their bikes for a long time, like Nice, are now developing temporary cycle paths," he notes. Others like Nantes, Grenoble, Rouen, Paris are thinking of doubling the 50 euros package offered by the State to repair his bicycle as part of the "bicycle boost". "
Olivier Schneider then draws a parallel between the period which opens today and those which led to the development of cycling in the Netherlands and Denmark in the past. "The oil shock of 1974 for the first country, and that of 1980 for the second," he said. In other words, crises which have forced the two countries to pursue the development of their transport infrastructure with constrained budgets. However, a "bike" plan can be done at a very reasonable cost and quickly. A cycle track can be built in fifteen days. Marie Chéron said nothing else. "This period of deconfinement is an opportunity to test things, to rethink our trips in the city," she calls. The context is all the more favorable since these two months of confinement have shown the benefits of reducing car traffic in cities. On noise, pollution, but also on the quality of life nearby. "
Sometimes it takes nothing more to make the best bike path: the car-free bridge. 👍 # gangdelagny pic.twitter.com/qP8tbXsiU6
- Charles Maguin (@CMaguin) May 13, 2020Electric micro-mobility also ticks all the boxes
But the bicycle is not the only one to tick the boxes for post-Covid mobility. Electric scooters and other personal transport devices (Segways, monoroues, e-skate), or EDP, also have their cards to play, insists Fabrice Furlan, president of the Professional Federation of Micro-Mobility (FP2M). "Their use does not hamper compliance with the rules of social distancing and these EDP are just as much as the bicycle an alternative to the private car," he argues. With the additional advantage of lending itself very well to intermodality [possibility of taking your EDP on public transport], and being less prone to theft. "
A message that Fabrice Furlan is struggling to hear. "We would have liked, for example, the equivalent of the" bike boost ", he illustrates. In addition, very few communities set up aid for the purchase of EDP similar to those which exist, there again, for the bicycle. "As for the new sustainable mobility package which came into effect on Monday - and which allows employers to reimburse up to 400 euros per year and per employee for new borrowed mobility -" it only applies to EDP used in shared mobility and excludes owners of these devices, ”regrets Fabrice Furlan.
However, these owners are more and more numerous. In 2019, it sold 478,000 electric scooters, says the FP2M. That's more than the 388,000 electric bikes.
Paris
Coronavirus in Paris: The bicycle, queen of future deconfinement?
Nice
Coronavirus: What if Nice becomes a more “cycling” city after confinement?
A halt also for carpooling?
This is one of the question marks raised by Pierre-Yves Péguy and Marie Chéron. The Covid-19 epidemic could bring carpooling to a halt for the same reasons as public transport: the difficulty of enforcing social distancing. If it still weighed little, before the health crisis, in the overall balance sheet of daily trips, several cities had nevertheless bet on carpooling, always with this aim of fighting autosolism.
Ecov, which supports local authorities in setting up these car-pooling networks, thus organizes around ten networks comprising around thirty lines. "The main network is between Bourgoin-Jallieu and Lyon, along the A43, where stop bollards have been installed in the carpool areas," explains Harald Condé Piquer, business development manager. The promise is to make carpooling as simple as taking the bus, with less than five minutes waiting for the passenger at the stop. "
But for it to work, you need a sufficient number of drivers registered on the platform. “83% of the users of the platform on the Lyon-Bourgoin network, whom we interviewed, said they wanted to resume,” replies Harald Condé Piquer in any case. Of which 61% as much or more than before, out of solidarity. Figures which stick to a similar survey carried out with its regular users by Karos, another actor of carpooling home-work. "The priority was to secure the routes, which the various players in the sector did by adopting common rules, says Olivier Binet, co-founder of Karos. The mask is thus now compulsory and the rule is also to have no more than two people in the car: the driver and behind one passenger. "
At the same time, the public authorities also come to support. Last week, Elisabeth Borne, Minister for Effective Transition, announced the establishment of two lanes reserved for carpooling, in Ile-de-France, on the A1 and A6A motorways. They have been in effect since Monday.
- Car
- Bike
- Mobility
- Public transport
- Transport
- Deconfinement
- Planet