• Earn points the further you travel by plane… The “miles” system is ingenious, “but it boils down to encouraging people to increase their carbon footprint,” says David Atlan.

    Why not then copy it to adapt it to soft mobility?

  • This is Rob's idea, an application launched by the Niçois David Atlan with his friend Thibault Arnould.

    It lists around twenty soft mobility solutions for which you can accumulate points by using them and benefit from advantages at partner merchants.

  • Rob is not the only actor who wants to reward those who opt for soft mobility.

    There is also Transway, for example.

    An interesting lever to convince autosolistes to leave their car in the garage?

For the use of a Vélib ', the self-service bicycle service of the metropolis of Paris, you will accumulate four points for each euro spent.

The same goes for your journeys on the RATP network, whether by bus, metro, RER, or tram.

We go to five points per euro spent for Cityscoot - the private operator of self-service scooters -, five also for Lime or Dott, electric scooter rental platforms.

So goes life on Rob, a young application launched by David Atlan and Thibaut Arnould, two friends from Nice who met on the benches of a preparatory class for engineering schools.

In other words, the more you consume carbon-free transport, the more points you will accumulate.

“At Rob, 1,000 points correspond to 1 euro, explains David Atlan.

We can either use them to buy mobility services listed on our application, or donate them to associations, or convert them into gift cards with partner merchants.

»Currently Decathlon, Natures & Découvertes and Tina Paris, an e-commerce site specializing in sustainable fashion.

The "miles" for soft mobility

Rob is inspired by the "miles" loved by airline companies to retain their customers. "An ingenious system but which amounts to encouraging people to increase their carbon footprint when, conversely, there are no or few equivalents to encourage sustainable mobility," says David Atlan.

The application has been fully active for three months and allows you to accumulate points on more than twenty alternatives to the private car. “All Ile-de-France public transport, but also twelve VTC and taxis solutions, four car or car-sharing solutions, around ten self-service (free-floating) scooter, bicycle and scooter solutions…”. Not to mention carpooling with Blablacar or the train with Oui SNCF. “We focused on mobility services in the Ile-de-France region initially, but if one of them is also available elsewhere, we can also accumulate points there,” explains David Atlan.

In any case, the first step is to connect the application to your bank card.

“It is through spending, via a secure process, that we ensure that users have actually used one of the mobility solutions listed,” explains David Atlan.

20,000 points in two to three months?

Then come algorithms to calculate the number of points you deserve. “We have three criteria, details the Niçois. The price you paid, the partnership we have with the operator you have chosen and finally, most importantly, the eco-responsibility of the transport chosen. »On this last point, ROB says he thinks as much as possible in terms of« life cycle ». “We do not only look at the CO2 emissions generated during the journey, but also during the manufacture, maintenance and recycling of vehicles used by operators,” explains David Atlan.

Thus, getting into a VTC or thermal taxi only earns one point per euro spent.

On the other hand, “Tictactrip” reports 15. “It is a transport comparator integrating the train, the bus and the carpooling that we like a lot, because it offers combinations of these three modes to make it possible to stay on mobility. gentle until the last kilometer of the trip, ”explains David Atlan.

Le Niçois estimates that it takes an average of three to four months to reach 20,000 points, "a threshold that some of our users, heavy consumers of mobility, have reached in half the time," he says.

Rob has a little over 3,000 users to date, a number which should grow with the launch of the application in the Nice metropolis scheduled for early October and those expected in ten other cities within a year.

A trigger for new mobility?

It remains to be seen whether the app only makes it possible to retain urbanites who are already followers of soft mobility or if it also convinces autosolists? This is the whole problem of everyday travel. "The weight of the routines is very strong and we do not break them easily to test new transport," recalls Mathieu Chassignet, transport engineer at Ademe. A transport strike or a surge in fuel prices can push us to do so, he continues. But it is also the case, in a more positive way, of the financial incentive. “We know it's a lever that works,” continues Mathieu Chassignet. At Ademe, for example, we had followed the companies which had experimented, in 2014, with the bicycle kilometer allowance (IKV) granted to employees coming to work by bicycle. The device had enabled them, in a few months,to double the number of their cycling employees. "

A lever that is too little exploited in France?

“It is not at the center of mobility policies,” points out in any case Mathieu Chassignet.

The sustainable mobility package, [which took over from the IKV] remains an optional device and therefore little implemented by employers.

As for the reverse urban toll systems [which offer to pay for a time voluntary autosolistes to test more eco-responsible mobility solutions], they are struggling to see the light of day in French metropolises, "when they are widespread in the Netherlands and are shown to be effective ”.

ROB ... but also Transway

The Ademe engineer therefore sees the emergence of applications like Rob * rather favorably. Other actors do the same. This is the case with Transway. Since 2015, the Nantes-based company has been developing loyalty programs that reward each journey in soft mobility with points to be redeemed, then in gifts and advantages with local and national partner merchants. "We are working in particular with public transport operators (Transdev, Kéolis, Ile-de-France mobility, etc.) to make this loyalty program available to their users," explains Nicolas Trochon, president of Transway. The service is called EcoMobi in Bordeaux [the first to be launched], Clubeo in Toulouse, TCL Fidélité in Lyon, AvanTAG in Grenoble, or is accessible via the Navigo Liberté + offer in Ile-de-France… ”

Transway has published loyalty programs in around thirty cities and has a little less than one million users.

Above all, the people of Nantes are launching Weflo these days, an application that can be used whatever its city and which functions as a mobility tracker.

"We do not scrutinize banking transactions, but the user's movements with a tool capable of automatically detecting the chosen mobility," explains Nicolas Trochon.

With a big advantage: that of being able to capture and therefore reward the person who uses sustainable mobility but who pays nothing for it.

Typically the cyclist who owns his bike, the walker, or even the motorist who shifts his working hours to get out of rush hour.

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