Reducing car dependency is one of the main goals of urban transport and land-use policies. In France, urban policies have primarily focused on the development of public transport and the restriction of car use. These policies have been quite effective in city centres. However they have been thwarted by the growing sprawl of households and economic activities, which have been accompanied by a multi-polarization of daily trips and an increase in distances travelled by car. There is a huge literature on the determining factors of car dependency (socio-economic, spatial, psychological…) and on the difficulties in changing individual daily travel behaviour. On the other hand there is little research on the policies that would encourage households to demotorise (i.e. to reduce the number of the cars they own) in a permanent manner, and on the conditions under which demotorisation could be effectively accompanied by a significant reduction in car use. The few studies available on this topic, mainly based on quantitative data, highlight that demotorisation remains a rare phenomenon, and that it is often related to economic constraints or a change in the household size (like the death of one of the partners or children moving out). However we assume that a thorough research on recent tendencies regarding demotorisation (observed in some dense parts of urban areas) is necessary in order to inform public stakeholders on the strategies to implement in order to reduce the number of cars owned by the households and mitigate the negative social and environmental consequences associated to car use, in a context where the image of the automobile is changing, ICT provide new perspectives regarding the organisation of daily activities (e-commerce, teleworking…) and mobility services (car sharing, carpooling…), and where urban forms are changing at various scales (ecodistricts, polycentrism…). Based on the analysis of four French urban areas (Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux and Dijon), and on quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the MoDe (Motives for Demotorisation in Urban Areas) research project has three goals. The first aim is to generate an overview, at the household scale and over long time scales, of the (socio-economic, psychological, spatial) motives which explain sustainable demotorisation. Beyond the role of biographical factors and instrumental and non-instrumental (symbolic and emotional) motives, accent will be put on the influence of social and urban contexts, and on the way the different factors interact in the long-run and lead to demotorisation, which will be considered as a process (and not as an isolated decision). The second aim seeks to describe and analyse the relationship between demotorisation, travel behaviour (especially car use) and social inequalities (mobility and accessibility). This comprehensive analysis will ensure the efficacity and the sustainability of public policies aiming at reducing the number of cars in urban areas. Indeed the third objective of MoDe is to address recommendations to policy makers in the fields of transportation and land-use with the goals to reduce car ownership, decrease car use and mitigate socio-spatial inequalities. The researchers are from sociology, psychology, geography, economy and planning. Additionally a close collaboration will be built in the four selected urban areas with policy makers who have already expressed their interest for the Mode project: they accepted to be interviewed (in order to help us understand the local contexts) and to participate in two workshops with the researchers in the middle and at the end of the project.

Given the significant development of the urban areas in the last decades, recent parliamentary reports pointed out the existence of important territorial disparities in the organization of care by underscoring “deficits and defects in the health system”. The “Hospital, Patients, Health, Territories” Law of the 21st July 2009 launches a reform aiming at ensuring an equal access to the health care system from any point of the territory and at ensuring a more effective care delivery. The SAMU system (Emergency Medical Aid Service) created 30 years ago in order to organize the urgent medical aid at the level of each department, has to adapt itself to this reform. In France, the handling of calls arriving to the SAMU system involves a medical diagnosis. The medical decision, in the most serious cases, consists in sending a SMUR (Reanimation and Emergency Mobile Service) team on scene. However, since its creation, the SAMU-SMUR system does not have appropriate performance indicators, its performance being evaluated only at the volume of activities realised by the system. In urban areas, where the problems of accessibility are important, the analysis of the current system identified some deficiencies: the ratio of SMUR teams arriving on scene in less than 10 minutes after the reception of the call was lower than 21% (observation from SAMU 94 data). The SAMU system is therefore a perfect example of urban service illustrating the gap between the hospital and the sustainable city concepts. For this system, since urban constraints are very strong, it is difficult to guarantee an access to the care within the period of time recommended by the medical review of literature (direct relationship between mortality and time). The objective of this project is to optimise the organisation of the service provided by the SAMU-SMUR system by using a systemic approach taking into account all the elements of this complex care delivery system in an urban context. We therefore aim at working on the whole organization and the medical strategy of the SAMU system by deploying a multi-disciplinary approach based on the most relevant and recent scientific methods and technologies in order to respect the target times for critical pathological situations. The method will be developed by using data from pilot departments having maximum urban environmental constraints. It can then be deployed to the other French urban areas. The project consortium consists in: the SAMU 94 and 4 research laboratories (EA 4390 of UPEC,, LGI lab of ECP, COGIT Lab of IGN and LVMT of ENPC.).. The scientific program is structured over 7 tasks: 1 - definition of the objectives 2 - identification of urgent medical situations by new technologies 3 - quantitative performance evaluation of the global system 4 - definition of the system architecture and data flows 5 - simulation of various scenarios to optimize the static structure of the system 6 - simulation of dynamic scenarios in order to propose real time options to physicians 7 – development of organizational recommendations, a computer aided tool that enables to redefine the organization and a demonstrator for real-time operations The 24 months duration project will provide 6 deliverables: deliverable 1: methodological guidelines for the optimization of SAMU operations deliverable 2: an optimization model enabling to improve SAMU operations in urban areas deliverable 3: recommendations for a better identification of medical emergency situations deliverable 4: specifications for a decision-making software to be used by the regulating SAMU physician deliverable 5: design of a demonstrator illustrating the information flow, the interfaces between systems, their update and the tracing of data deliverable 6: recommendations towards the town planning process in terms of accessibility needs for medical emergency services

Studies of daily mobility over the last few decades have focused on the most vulnerable populations in order to understand the social and geographical patterns of their travel. However, the study of these vulnerabilities does not include those who do not hold a driving licence (the licence-less) who currently represent 17% of the French population of driving age. With the exception of the relationship with the driving licence of young urban graduates (6.53% of the licence-less) who postpone it and the diffusion of this certificate in the French population, the daily mobility, the relationship and socialisation to the driving licence or to the car of this fraction of the French population remain little studied. This research project is based on preliminary statistical analyses of the sociological and geographical diversity of the licence-less. The aim is to understand the lifestyles of already identified social groups whose categorisation remains to be improved. At a time when our modes of travel and the use of the automobile must evolve to mitigate ongoing climate and ecological changes, what do the llicence-less tell us about life without direct access to the car? This project does not seek to objectify a 'driving licence effect' but to investigate geographical lifestyles in their social and cognitive diversity among those who do not hold a driving licence. It aims to complement the numerous studies on the barriers and drivers of behavioural changes from car to other modes of transport, as well as on the recent studies on the demotorisation of households. The investigations will be based both on statistical analyses of various INSEE databases, in order to observe notably the evolution of these lifestyles, on public action archives and on qualitative analyses from semi-directive interviews in two French metropolitan territories.

This project aims to quantify the uncertainties of the pollutant concentrations that are computed by an operational urban air quality model. The uncertainties refer to the range of values that the errors (i.e., the discrepancies between the model outputs and the true values) can take. These errors are usually modeled as a random vector, whose probability density function is the complete description of the uncertainties. Our strategy to approximate this probability density function is the generation of an ensemble of simulations that properly samples the errors. The application is air quality simulation across Clermont-Ferrand, using a dynamic traffic model to compute traffic emissions and using an atmospheric chemistry-transport model that explicitly represents the streets of the city. Based on the emission data, meteorological conditions and background pollutant concentrations, the air quality model computes every hour the concentration fields (across the whole city) of several air pollutants, especially dioxide nitrogen and particulate matter. As a result of the complexity of atmospheric phenomena and the limited observations, the simulations can show high uncertainties which need to be estimated. Our objective is to propose a tractable approach to provide uncertainty estimations along with any urban simulation. The approach should apply to short-term forecasts as well as long-term simulations (e.g., for impact studies). One major uncertainty source lies in the traffic emissions. We will carefully estimate the uncertainties of traffic assignments in the streets and of associated pollutant emissions. Using multiple simulations of a state-of-the-art dynamic traffic model, an ensemble of traffic assignments will be generated. The ensemble will be calibrated with traffic observations so that it should be representative of the uncertainties of the traffic model. The associated ensemble of pollutant emissions will provide inputs to the air quality model. An ensemble of air quality simulations will be generated, using the different traffic emissions, using perturbed input data (Monte~Carlo approach) and possibly a multimodel approach. This ensemble will also be calibrated using observations of pollutant concentrations in the air. The air quality model is a high-dimensional model with high computational cost. In order to generate an ensemble of simulations, it is necessary to reduce the computational costs. Consequently a part of the project deals with the reduction of the air quality model. This project is proposed in a context of increasing use of numerical air quality models at urban scale. The models are used for daily forecasts, for assessment of long-term exposure of populations to pollution, for the evaluation of the impact of new regulations, ... We will propose methods that can be applied in an operational context to the core modeling chain, from traffic assignment to atmospheric dispersion. The scientific results of the project will be integrated in an operational modeling system that is currently used for many cities in France and abroad.

Shopping constitutes, depending on the location, about one-sixth of all private trips. A large proportion of these are made by car, even for short distances. Moreover, a large share of emissions from shopping travel is accounted for by trips to distant facilities, even when opportunities are available nearer. Meanwhile, recent changes in shopping, e.g., increased online shopping, have resulted in a sharp increase in delivery traffic (and a parallel but lesser reduction in car-based shopping trips). Within urban outskirts, these issues are amplified as shopping opportunities within 15 minutes may be limited, requiring further travel or home delivery. While there are insights on mobility trends, consumer behaviour, and innovative forms of urban logistics, there is a need for cities to develop a strategic integrated view on the traffic generated from urban logistics and individual shopping behaviour, and their interaction. FRESH aims: To investigate for the urban outskirts the conditions necessary to reduce motorized transport for shopping, whether by individuals or by last-mile urban logistics services, and to develop design and planning guidelines to achieve this. Engaging in co-design with stakeholders, we will assess how urban planning in different settings impacts integrated personal and freight travel demand and consequent overall transport, emission and liveability. We will apply a mix of methods. This will include: scenario analyses, SWOT analysis, freight data needs, vehicle counts, establishment surveys, use of carrier data, statistical analyses on existing data, our own stated preference and revealed preference data on shopping and travel behaviour, observations, model development and co-creation. This mix of methods will allow us to understand the entire system, i.e., the supply and demand side of urban freight that results from shopping, from different angles. This project advances the state of the art by an integrated assessment on how urban and transport planning in different settings impacts on personal and freight demand and supply, and how these interactions impact on overall transport, emissions, and liveability. More specific points of innovations include the focus on shopping (an under-explored topic of suburban mobility), urban logistics in the urban outskirts, and the integrated focus on both personal and freight transport, including the interactions between the two.