Lhe “France that leads” deserves a mobility system that meets the challenges and its aspirations. It is not utopian to aspire that, within a few years, more than 80% of French people will have access to an express mobility service, less than ten minutes from home. But, for this, and while the bill launched by the deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône Jean-Marc Zulesi (Renaissance) on metropolitan regional express services is being examined, we must think about things in their entirety . Relying on metropolitan RERs is important, going well beyond is essential.
Faced with current challenges, it is time to think outside the box and build an innovative, sustainable transportation network accessible to all.
The state of the art is clear: more than 60% of French people living outside city centers would like to use their car less on a daily basis (survey “The movements of the French “, Ipsos, 2022), but cannot. For them to take their hands off the wheel, they must have a quality alternative offer: fast, frequent, reliable, let’s call it “express”. Yes, there needs to be a “supply shock”. How to deploy high-frequency transport outside dense areas? The network to be built could be based on three bricks.
Another collective transport, the free seat
The first brick, the most visible, is made up of high-frequency trains – the RER – on the “railway stars” of metropolises. But let’s make no mistake: there will be no new line, only improved services with a high frequency. In other words, metropolitan RERs will only satisfy a fraction of the population. Furthermore, they will take ten to fifteen years to be deployed and require colossal investments.
The second brick is based on the deployment of express coach lines. Recently, a report, carried by François Durovray, president (Les Républicains) of the departmental council of Essonne, demonstrates how high-frequency coach lines would make it possible to strengthen the network for the Ile-de-France regions which do not benefit from the Grand Paris Express, and this at a limited cost. The application case obviously goes beyond Ile-de-France.
The third brick, finally, is based on a French innovation: “express carpooling lines”. They operate like a bus line, but the supply is provided by the drivers who pass through them on their daily journeys. They have demonstrated their ability to transform free seats in private vehicles into high-quality public transport offerings, with an average waiting time of less than four minutes. Communities are taking up the subject to make it a real structuring policy, like the Joint Mobility Union of the Grenoble area, the metropolises of Rennes, Lyon, Rouen, Reims, etc.
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