As you may have noticed in recent days, the roads and public transport are congested again, a sign of the return of employees to companies.
While some keep a few days of teleworking per week, business districts are coming back to life and floods of passengers are once again emerging from the ground to join the offices from the subway entrances.
On the roads, the same observation: kilometers of traffic jams are making a big comeback.
Read alsoThe shock of teleworking forces many sectors to reinvent themselves
The drivers have indeed taken the wheel, according to data from Sytadin, provided by the Direction des routes d'Île-de-France in
Figaro
.
For the week of September 13 to 19, 2021, there were an average of 100km of traffic jams on the roads of Île-de-France, i.e. 5 times more than between August 9 and 16.
Traffic has thus returned to its levels at the beginning of June 2021, a period during which the kilometers of traffic jams had reached records since September 2020, already suggesting the end of a period of tranquility on the roads.
Traffic had indeed dropped significantly between weeks 12 and 17 (from March 22 to May 2) due to containment measures in Île-de-France, which entered into force on March 20, 2021. These restrictions had been gradually lifted from May 3.
The circulation for the start of the 2021 school year exceeds that of before the crisis
The week of September 13 to 19, 2021 (week 37 on the graph below saw the number of traffic jams increase by 31% compared to 2019. Since mid-August, traffic has thus been permanently above its normal levels. levels of 2019 and 2020. Ile-de-France residents therefore take their car more than before the Covid-19 crisis since the start of the 2021 school year. The number of kilometers of traffic jams had nevertheless remained at a lower level than in 2019 and 2020 on the 7 first months of the year, especially during confinement from April to May.
Public transport is still suffering, but cycling is popular
While more and more workers are taking the car, users are also thronging the metro and RER.
But in the latter, attendance has still not returned to its pre-crisis levels.
Employees seem to prefer the privacy of their vehicle to public transport during this back-to-school period.
At the beginning of September, the validation volume in the Île-de-France metros and RERs thus represented 70% of its level in 2019 according to Île-de-France Mobilité.
These levels are similar to those observed in June 2021, explains the organization.
The difference with the situation on the roads is striking.
Read also Covid: does public transport really only represent 1% of contamination?
If these figures suggest a return to normal in the near future, workers would therefore still be cautious about using public transport. The Minister of Transport, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, however affirmed in October 2020 that “
less than 1% of contaminations
” occurred in public transport. The minister's remarks have, it seems, hardly reassured Ile-de-France residents. In addition, the numerous summer works, which spilled over into the month of September, could have delayed the return of users to transport.
The Parisians could however have swapped the RER and subways for bicycles.
Bicycles are making a comeback in the capital.
The counters installed in the streets of Paris have each counted an average of 86.1 bicycle passages since the beginning of September 2021, a record since September 2020 and an increase of 100% since January.
Which telework day to choose according to your mode of transport?
Some teleworking trends could also be detected using this traffic data. Since the beginning of September, Thursday has been the day when the fewest traffic jams are noted, with 86 km of traffic jams on average over the day. Monday comes second in the least congested day with an average of 96 km of traffic jams at any time T during the day. These two days could therefore be the ones favored by Ile-de-France drivers for working remotely. On the contrary, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the busiest days. If you want to avoid traffic jams, choose these two days to work from home, against the grain of the rest of Île-de-France.
If you cycle to work and want to escape traffic jams on the cycle path, avoid travel on Thursday, the busiest day on average since early September.
Conversely, the day when the fewest trips are observed is Wednesday.
Cyclists and drivers therefore seem to have the opposite travel habits, perhaps anxious to avoid each other on the roads, in this back-to-school month.
