How to know in real time, or almost, the new travel habits of the inhabitants of Greater Paris in order to act without delay on the improvement of daily transport and the reduction of their impact on the environment?
This is the question posed by specialists from the Paris Region Institute commissioned by the region on this subject.
And the answer came by itself: you have to go directly to the source, the transport users themselves.
“Regular surveys already exist but the data is most often collected over fairly long periods and, by the time it is analyzed, there is a lag.
The figures sometimes date back several years when they are published,” explains Dany NGuyen-Luong, director of the transport mobility department at the Paris Region Institute.
Behaviors that change
As a result, these studies, even if they remain useful, do not correspond to the requirements of a society whose behavior is changing ever faster.
This is particularly the case since the start of the Covid crisis.
The last EGT survey (global transport survey) dates from 2018, so before the health crisis and the confinements, and its periodicity is every nine years on average.
Can't wait until 2027 to get new information.
“The mobility habits of our fellow citizens have changed.
We need to know more precisely what is going on, in order to quickly make proposals”, specifies the researcher.
Read alsoTraffic in Greater Paris: car, metro, bicycle… the car, big loser in the travel match
Hence the idea of launching, in agreement with the State and the region, a major innovative survey in the field based on the GPS tracks of 4,000 volunteer users aged 15 and over.
A survey whose data will be communicated in a much shorter time than usual.
Proof that the stakes are high: twelve partners support the project, including the RATP and the SNCF of course, but also the City of Paris and the four departments of the outer suburbs who hope to find information there for their future initiatives.
A GPS box to take with you for a week
In addition to its scale and speed, the main novelty of this survey, which will take place in shifts of one week from mid-October 2022 to mid-March 2023, consists in equipping each participant with a GPS box.
A box that he undertakes to take with him on each of his trips for seven days, including weekends, in order to precisely follow his mobility habits.
The GPS data will then be processed by algorithms, and supplemented by a daily logbook filled in online or on paper by the same participant.
The volunteers will be equipped for a week with a GPS device.
The Paris Region Institute ensures that everyone's privacy will be fully respected.
LP/Frederic Choulet
And for those who are worried about the intrusive side of the operation, the Paris Region Institute ensures that everyone's privacy will be fully respected.
"We guarantee full compliance with the general data protection regulations", underlines Dany NGuyen-Luong.
In addition to the total anonymity of the information transmitted - "no name will appear at any time" -, "the investigation is accompanied, at the level of the raw traces, by a program of blurring of the first and last 50 meters of each movement in a dense environment, and 100 meters in a sparse environment”, explains the director of the transport mobility department.
How will the 4,000 volunteers be selected?
“The idea is to build a pool of 20,000 applications, from which we will practice a random draw to obtain our sample of 4,000 participants.
The latter will be chosen according to pre-established quotas of place of residence, age, socio-professional category and gender corresponding to the representativeness of the Ile-de-France population.
Once the survey is complete, the time for data analysis can begin.
And there too, the restitution will beat records since the lessons of this vast operation should be known within a period of only three months after the end of the test.
The icing on the cake, each person followed will be entitled to a reward, a multi-brand voucher worth 30 euros issued at the end of the operation.
To participate, the only criteria to be met are to live in Île-de-France and be at least 15 years old.
If you want to try your luck, go to
Forms.office.com