Urban public transportation is considered an important tool for public policies aimed at promoting a transition rooted in ecology and solidarity. Indeed, transportation—particularly road transportation—has been the sector that has emitted the most greenhouse gases since 1998, accounting for 30% of emissions in France in 2017, half of which was from private vehicles (CGDD 2018a, p. 108).
The Covid-19 health crisis has raised important questions about how to finance this potential expansion of services, particularly given the significant decline in resources. Revenue from users was set to fall by an average of 30% in France in 2020 (Duron 2021). Faced with this situation, the main solution envisaged by transportation stakeholders (transit authorities and operating companies) seems to be the search for a balance that could be described as high-level, in the sense that the aim is to produce a wide-ranging, high-quality service, inspired by the smart city model and its renowned autonomous systems (autonomous vehicles, battery-powered electric vehicles), but at the cost of high resource consumption, the achievement of which seems to be marked by great uncertainty and would only be accessible in the long term. It would be characterized by a high level of technology and expenditure, requiring many new resources. However, we believe that another choice is possible: that of a low-speed equilibrium (with more limited production that is perhaps more in line with needs and much lower resource consumption), which is more certain and available in the short term, based on older but revisited technologies, and requiring far fewer resources.
Funding: a problem that pre-dates Covid-19
The funding model for urban public transportation in France has been considered fragile by transit specialists since at least the 2000s (Faivre d’Arcier 2010). More specifically, funding requirements have continued to increase with the development of services, particularly with the introduction of streetcar (tram) networks by many local transit authorities (in France, now known as autorités organisatrices de mobilités (AOMs), or “mobility organizing authorities”). Operating costs in France have risen steadily since the mid-1990s, by an average of around 6% per year for networks in smaller cities (50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants) and in larger cities without subway or streetcar systems during the period from 2004 to 2015. For larger cities with subway (metro) and/or streetcar networks, the increase was 4.3% (CGDD 2018b, p. 3), due in part to the introduction of rail-based modes of transit (subways or streetcars) that increased operating costs per kilometer.
For their part, commercial revenues, consisting of tariff revenues (which make up the largest part) and revenues from ancillary activities (e.g. advertising), have certainly increased, but not enough to cover financing needs (ibid., p. 3). As a result, the rate of coverage of total production costs for urban transit services (operating and investment) by commercial revenues has declined since the 2000s for all networks, with the possible exception of the Lyon network. In 2015, this coverage rate averaged less than 14% (Guelton and Poinsot 2020a and 2020b).
The rest of the funding is provided by two other major sources (excluding loans), namely the transport levy, which has become the mobility levy (VM) under the Mobility Orientation Law, and contributions from public institutions. The VM is a local tax introduced by decision of the mobility organizing authority and paid by private and public employers with eleven or more employees in an area where urban public transport exists. It is levied as a percentage of the total payroll. The levy rate is set by the local transit authority within the limits imposed by law. On average, in 2015, it covered 48% of all urban transit expenditure. The mobility levy rate is at its maximum regulatory level in almost all large urban areas. The situation appears to be slightly less problematic in some small and medium-sized urban areas, which still have some room for maneuver (Richer 2017). Finally, the budgetary contribution of public institutions accounts for approximately 38.2% of total expenditure. Like the VM, its share of urban transit funding is increasing over time, and the prospects for future growth are far from certain in a context of declining local public budgets.
This general strain on the financing model therefore requires us to look not only at resources, but also at expenditures, which is less common in public debate.
What choices between high-speed and low-speed models?
While the search for new resources appears essential, the level they could reach will depend on the transportation systems that are developed. Two options are emerging: a low-speed equilibrium and a high-speed equilibrium.
The high-speed model is embodied in particular by autonomous vehicles or shuttles. Can it reduce costs?
Firstly, it involves high investment costs: a fifteen-seat Navya [1] shuttle (€250,000) costs between the investment cost of a standard diesel bus (€200,000) and that of a standard hybrid bus (€400,000), both of which have 80 seats, making it three to six times more expensive per seat. These costs are due to the high technicality of the vehicles, which suggests a more frequent replacement rate. Secondly, autonomous vehicles are systems that depend on a high level of infrastructure quality, both in terms of equipment and maintenance, which entails costs borne by structures other than the public transport operator (Sénat 2017). For example, vertical signage would need to be adapted and local authorities would need to deploy digital capabilities (data storage and sensors) to achieve total autonomy. [2] Thirdly, the shuttles currently under development are still small modules, reminiscent of solutions that have been seeking for decades to position themselves between individual and public transport. However, successive attempts at these solutions have always failed, such as the famous case of Aramis in the 1980s or the lesser-known case of Spårtaxi in Sweden. These failures are mainly due to their high costs and the fragility of small modules, while the expected revenues appear low due to reduced capacity.
Believing that autonomous vehicles promise lower costs is simply the contemporary expression of what could be described as a headlong rush into technology that seems to characterize the world of mobility in the industrial age: tomorrow’s solutions will enable us to free ourselves from constraints that are described as temporary, when in fact they are often inherent to the world of mobility. One example that comes to mind is the recurring theme of low-capacity air transport systems, from Albert Robida’s La Sortie de l’Opéra en l’an 2000 (1902) to the flying taxis announced for the 2024 Olympic Games. This dynamic systematically comes up against limitations, such as speed, which is always low in cities, or travel time, which is more or less constant.
Flipping the question around seems like a good way to go: it’s not about always looking for more resources to fund new tech, but about adapting tech to the resources we have, whether that’s money, materials, or energy. This means we can look at low-tech solutions. Following the major wave of tramway construction in France between the 1990s and 2010s, Besançon paved the way for this approach when it sought to build a low-cost tramway, in contrast to previous projects which, while offering high urban quality, were nonetheless very expensive.
The option of simple technical solutions aimed at controlling costs cannot be ruled out on the grounds of necessary innovation. The world of transportation is a graveyard of revolutionary solutions, whose promoters too often believed that innovation should reside in technical objects, forgetting the powerful constraints specific to the urban public transportation sector (reliability, safety, massification, urban integration, etc.). This observation invites us to revisit old solutions that have addressed these constraints in light of contemporary challenges (Passalacqua 2011).
To take a concrete example, we might ask ourselves how to decarbonize bus networks. Several solutions are available, the main one currently being promoted being battery-powered electric buses, as widely used in Eindhoven, which is regularly cited as the city that is leading the way for other European networks. However, electric buses are a solution developed a century ago, along with trolleybuses, but they were not very competitive at the time compared to less expensive thermal solutions. Their appearance has also often been criticized because of their overhead power supply (Passalacqua 2012). This system seems to have been somewhat forgotten in France today, with the exception of a few cities where it has left its mark or continues to do so, such as Grenoble, Lyon, and Limoges (Soulas 2015). It is associated with Soviet Eastern Europe, even though it also operates in Lausanne and Geneva, wealthy cities with landscapes that are far from neglected.
Unlike autonomous vehicles, trolleybuses are dependent on the network. Why deny this, if not to prolong the dream of unlimited mobility through technological progress? It seems necessary to seek hybrid solutions between battery-powered vehicles and overhead power supply vehicles if we want to preserve certain urban areas from overhead power lines. Such a choice is being considered in Berlin for the Spandau district in order to reduce the overall cost of transport services. Unlike electric buses, which must remain in the depot to recharge during service or have very large batteries (Fraunhofer 2019), hybrid trolleybuses limit operating and investment costs by reducing the fleet of vehicles required.
Low-cost measures can also make public transport more attractive. One example is the widespread reduction of the maximum speed limit in cities to 30 km/h (20 mph). By reducing the appeal of cars, this could support the growth of public transport. Given that the speed of cars has led to the expansion of urban areas while making these new territories unsuitable for public transport, a general reduction in speed is one of the keys to the emergence of a more compact urban form that is much more likely to be served by public transport at reasonable costs.
Increasing funding levels while re‑evaluating the need for technical innovation
Our era must rethink many of its technical choices due to resource and climate issues. Can it still be based on the implicit logic of technical progress at all costs? Does it not also reflect a belief in technology as a solution to problems that are in fact related to socio-territorial configurations? The promises made by technical objects should not obscure the pace of their eventual deployment—some 30 years in the case of shuttles and autonomous vehicles—and the considerable uncertainty surrounding the results they may produce.
This highlights the contrast between the so-called smart city model, which clearly has a high equilibrium point, and an approach that encourages us to reinvent the networked city through a more pragmatic relationship with technology. The advantage of this low-tech approach is that it draws on a vast repertoire of historical experiences from cities that were already served by public transportation before the widespread use of cars.
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