• The metropolis of Montpellier is testing a new type of bus shelter that offers users a feeling of freshness, without using water or electricity.

  • These stations use ancestral techniques such as perforated ceramic, which provides natural ventilation, or black plates, which capture heat.

  • Montpellier residents can test these bus shelters on the forecourt of the town hall, until July 1, before installation at Park Eurêka and on the Juvénal bridge.

A stone bench, a climbing plant, a small roof.

At first sight, the only innovation of these bus shelters is to be much more elegant than those which usually adorn the streets of Montpellier (Hérault).

And yet, these small stations, which will be tested by the metropolis this summer, are of formidable ingenuity: without using either water or electricity, they provide users waiting for the bus with a feeling of freshness, rather welcome in these times. great heat.

Created by Lemon, the metropolitan mobility experimentation laboratory, these bus shelters use old techniques, with natural or sustainable materials.

Called Terra, they will be deployed in July at Park Eurêka and on the Juvénal bridge.

For Julie Frêche (PS), elected representative of the metropolis for mobility, these stations are a way of "adapting the city to irremediable climate change" which threatens the planet.

And "to improve the comfort of users" of buses, which do not have the same waiting conditions as those of the tramway.

Low tech against high temperatures

"It's not high technology, it's even almost" low tech "[low technology]", notes Edouard Hénault, the general manager France of Transdev, one of the actors of the Lemon laboratory.

The idea is to use "ancestral techniques", saying "how do we adapt this to the modernity of public transport", he continues.

One of these bus shelters of the future is thus composed of a mashrabiya, an openwork ceramic partition, very common in the traditional architecture of Arab countries, which provides natural ventilation.

Small roofs made of recycled plastic, and a bougainvillea, complete the device, just to have your head in the shade.

“We feel a fresh air!

»

Another, the "Badguir tower", is inspired by Persian culture.

On a large wooden column, large black plates capture the heat, which brings inside a small fresh wind, which is released by ventilations, at the level of the back, the nape of the neck or the head of the travelers.

And it's quite effective.

As soon as you settle in one of these shelters, you have a real feeling of freshness.

“Yes, we feel a fresh air!

“, exclaims a passerby, who is testing these stations of a new kind, presented until July 1 on the forecourt of the town hall.

An online platform has also been opened, so that everyone can give their opinion.

Because, notes Christophe Tincelin, one of the designers who imagined these bus shelters, “there is still room for improvement” to be made on these prototypes.

All these stations are also made up of similar modules (a stone bench, a climbing plant, ladders, wooden towers, etc.), which can be assembled at will, like construction briquettes.

“The intention was to create a system of objects, rather than three different objects, notes the engineer.

Compositions, we can do a lot, and adapt to the context and the needs.

What if Terra were the bus shelters of tomorrow?

Montpellier

Montpellier: Towards the sea, the station and the airport, where are these three urgent extensions of the tramway?

Montpellier

Montpellier: Ecological and silent, we climbed into the future bustram

  • Planet

  • Montpellier

  • Heat

  • Bus

  • Public transport

  • Occitania

  • Languedoc Roussillon

  • Heat wave