The Emerging Risks of Sustainable Mobility – RED

The RED project is original as it combines methods from different fields (urban studies, geography, accident research, social psychology, political sciences) to analyse a given object.
The analysis of the emerging objective risks of sustainable mobility will be based on:

• the processing of large data bases (INSEE data, Household Travel Surveys, national accident files, accident records, detailed accident studies and typical accident scenarios) and crossing data in some territories (notably the urban community of Lille).
• a detailed map of these data enabling the spatial analysis of risks. This modelling will make use of dynamic GIS developments that involve geomatics.
• in parallel, the analysis of the risk perceived by users and designers of highways and public spaces will be based on the collection of qualitative data (interviews, questionnaires, in situ observations) and on their statistical processing.
• lastly, information on the place and treatment of sustainable mobility risks in public policy will be provided by analysing the discourse and successive arguments of stakeholders: expressions of support accompanying electoral campaigns, communication pamphlets accompanying planning documents, brochures presenting the projects carried out from a sustainable mobility perspective as well as interviews with regional experts who possess significant “non-modelled” knowledge, hardly exportable, of their region and its risks.

The main sections of th project

Section A. New uses, new users, new risks
A1. Emerging risks linked to the development of TCSP (Urban Public Transport with Exclusive Right of Way)
A2.Motorcycles in urban zones: unsustainable?
A3. Alternatives to cars and night accidents
A4. Spatial distribution of the sustainable policies
A5.Sustainable mobility and the new spaces of the metropolitan economic performance
A6. Sustainable mobility at the risk of differential treatment of urban spaces

Section B. Perceptions and representations of emerging risks of sustainable mobility
B1 Active modes, perceived risk and representations of road rules
B2 Crossed Perceived representations of pedestrians and automobilists
B3 “Semi-pedestrianisation” projects et theirs risks : what planners think ?
B4 Sustainable mobility and new distribution of automobile trafic

Section C. Public policy and the integration of new risks of sustainable mobility in urban management
C1. 2014 Municipal elections : place and treatment of safe and sustainable mobility issues within political agendas
C2. Taking sustainable mobility risks into account when designing urban planning
C3. Reconciling durability, competiveness and attractiveness/accessibility of the territories within a city of flows
C4 Modelling territories as complex spatial systems in order to produce tools to guide public decision making

The aim of this project is to produce knowledge on emerging risks of sustainable mobility in order to better take them into account in public policy, and notably within public territorial and urban intervention. Consequently, this involves producing knowledge on emerging objective risks. However, this does not suffice. It is for this reason that the RED project will couple the knowledge of objective risks with that of organisational and political barriers which can slow down their integration within the political agenda and their inclusion in regional management. This coupling is essential to enable the scientific knowledge produced to emerge in the form of public decision-making tools that can easily be adopted by the stakeholders behind this public policy.

CLABAUX N., FOURNIER J.Y. et J.E. MICHEL (2015) « Risques et processus d'accidents de la circulation liés à l'aménagement latéral des voies réservées aux bus », in S. Gaymard et T. Tiplica (Coord.), Sécurité des déplacements, protection des usagers et de l'environnement, tome 1, p.115-124

CLAUX M. (2016), « Réguler le stationnement en ville. Quels sont les coûts sociaux et environnementaux de l’attractivité urbaine ? », Flux

GRANIE, M.-A. (à paraître). Représentations sociales et sécurité routière. Analyse diachronique et synchronique des stabilités et des changements dans les contenus représentationnels. In G. Lo Monaco, S. Delouvée & P. Rateau (Eds.), Les représentations sociales. Théories, méthodes et applications. Bruxelles: de Boeck.

KAHN R. (2016), « La conception européenne du développement durable : volontariste, optimiste et marchéiste » in Bulletin de l’OPEE n°33, hiver 2015-2016, pp.15-22.

MAITRE E. (2015) « Public spaces re-designed for trams in French cities : safety concerns », Advances in Transportation Studies, vol. 37, p. 119-128.

PROPECK-ZIMMERMANN E., SAINT-GERAND T., MEDJKANE M. (2016) Allier analyse géographique et expertise locale dans un système d'information pour fonder une stratégie territoriale de sécurité routière, Revue Internationale de Géomatique,

FOURNIER J.Y., CLABAUX N.et T. BRENAC,« Sécurité des piétons dans les rues équipées de couloirs réservés aux bus », Recherche Transports Sécurité (article accepté le 14 mars 2016).

REIGNER H. (2016), “Neoliberal Rationality and Neohygienist Morality. A Foucaldian Analysis of Safe and Sustainable Urban Transport Policies in France, Territory, Politics, Governance, May.

SAINT-GÉRAND T., MEDJKANE M., BENSAID A., FLEURY D., PEYTAVIN J.F., PROPECK-ZIMMMERMANN E., BOUZID M. (2014) «Conceptualizing road safety management through territorialized complex system: context and goals«, TRA 2014, 14-17 Apr, Paris La Défense.

The contemporary thrust of urban public policies towards sustainable mobility is legitimate, considering the necessary ecological transition, but it generates new problems: lack of legibility of public spaces redesigned for tram or bus rapid transit systems, new kinds of accidents (tram/pedestrian), restricted accessibility to urban spaces (low emission zones, charging zones) and development of new uses (powered two-wheelers), spatially selective development of “green” or “traffic-calmed” neighbourhoods, resulting in increased social segregation inside the city. The proposed hypothesis is that the grandeur of the ecological justification pushes into the background the problems emerging from sustainable mobility policies and leaves them “unthinked”. In this context, the RED project aims to produce new knowledge on the emerging risks of sustainable mobility policies, to study the representation and modelling of these risks, and to encourage their integration into public intervention.

Scientific stakes and objectives
Curtailing the automotive sector and promoting alternatives to shift towards a transport and travel system that reduces greenhouse gas emissions is now a political priority displayed at all levels of government (local, national, international). The management of this consensual issue has already produced considerable changes in public policy: reducing motor car spaces within some urban areas, promoting walking and cycling, renewing public transport objects.
These changes that are legitimate considering the necessary energetic and ecological transition could nonetheless generate new problems: difficulty in understanding the redesigned spaces and new types of road accidents (for instance bus corridors, tram/pedestrian), restricted access to some urban spaces (ZAPA (priority air-quality zone), urban charging zones) and development resulting from new uses (motorised two-wheelers), enhancement of intra-urban social segregation associated to the spatially selective development of “green” and other “calm” neighbourhoods. The RED project supports the hypothesis that emerging problems and risks induced by new sustainable mobility policies are overlooked owing to the grandeur of ecological justification.
The RED project is original as it combines methods from different fields (urban studies, geography, accident research, social psychology, political sciences) to analyse a given object.

In this context, the objectives of the RED project are three-fold:
• Produce knowledge on the emerging risks and new vulnerabilities resulting from sustainable mobility policies; these have received little attention (section A).
• Work on the perception of risks, representations, and the modelling of these new risks (section B).
• Identify the organisational and political barriers which slow down the integration of sustainable mobility risks within the political agenda and within regional management (section C).