Speaker
Description
Since the 1980s, many cities in Europe, including the Eurométropole de Strasbourg, have implemented policies to reduce transportation and mobility related negative impacts, especially those caused by individual cars. In the Eurométropole de Strasbourg, measures have been introduced to limit car use while promoting sustainable transport. This includes developing public transportation, enhancing shared and active modes (walking, cycling) usage, and urban planning focused on a "proximity metropolis" model to support sustainable mobility.
Furthermore, the Eurométropole de Strasbourg has restricted motorized mobility, particularly internal combustion engine vehicles, by creating a Low Emission Zone covering its 33 municipalities. The city also supports energy transition, encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles including electric bikes through purchase subsidies.
The central question is how well the Eurométropole de Strasbourg enables its residents to access essential daily-life resources, efficiently, comfortably, and at low cost (financial cost, effort, risk, emissions, energy and time) while using sustainable transport modes. To address this, spatial ergonomics (Saint-Gérand, 2002) which studies the capacity for a territory to fulfil the needs of its inhabitants at least costs, and especially its subdomain access ergonomics (Hached, 2019) which provides an approach through mobility, offer a relevant analytical framework. This approach assesses accessibility while focusing on its conditions not only regarding travel duration but also considering daily-life resources and infrastructure quality (facilities, safety, comfort, environment) adapted to each transport mode.
The hypothesis is that a high-quality environment helps to promotes sustainable transport, especially for active modes. Mobility behaviors, including route choices, are influenced by safety, comfort, and environmental factors (Piombini, 2013). Access ergonomics integrates these factors into a synthetic access ergonomics score composed of several sub-indicators to identify socio-spatial inequalities in accessing daily resources.
Previous studies (Saint-Gérand et al., 2021) showed significant variability in access across the Eurométropole de Strasbourg; however, they did not consider emerging mobility forms, such as electric vehicles and micromobility. The rise of micromobility and intermodality requires adaptation of these analyses.
Activity-based models are used for evaluating accessibility through a trip completion rate by measuring the proportion of the trips below a certain threshold (Somranath et al., 2025). This approach however does not consider key parts of access ergonomics (safety and convenience of trips).
Our study aims to improve realism and precision in evaluating access ergonomics. A new methodology has been developed to overcome limitations from previous works. Multi-agent modeling is used to simulate mobility behaviors based on detailed socio-spatial profiles, considering diverse socio-economic and demographic data at a fine scale (200 × 200 m). These profiles are fed to a geographic information system to assess access conditions using various transport modes (active, shared, motorized, intermodal).
Trips are analyzed within activity chains, where each activity (work, leisure, services) can be interconnected. The model also considers resource availability and transport service schedules, identifying potential inconsistencies that impact access ergonomics.
The study relies on open geographic and statistical data covering the Eurométropole de Strasbourg. The synthetic population is generated using eqasim (Hörl and Balac, 2021), and user profiles are adjusted based on socio-demographic data and mobility surveys.
The goal is also to develop a tool which will generate an access ergonomics score for each inhabited grid square, providing a detailed and comprehensive view of socio-spatial inequalities. The synthetic score will be broken down into sub-indicators (travel time, safety, comfort, etc.) and transport modes, enabling comparison across the territory. These results will help to identify actions for improving access ergonomics and for reducing inequalities.
In further studies, the developed tool will be improved by considering the aspect of energy transition, especially to take its consequences into account on the access ergonomics.
References
Hached, W., 2019. Ergonomie d’accès aux ressources de la vie quotidienne en mobilité douce : application à l’Eurométropole de Strasbourg (PhD Thesis). Strasbourg.
Hörl, S., Balac, M., 2021. Synthetic population and travel demand for Paris and Île-de-France based on open and publicly available data. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies 130, 103291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trc.2021.103291
Piombini, A., 2013. Contexte spatial des ambiances urbaines et usage des lieux. Ambiances. Environnement sensible, architecture et espace urbain. https://doi.org/10.4000/ambiances.261
Saint-Gérand, T., 2002. S.I.G. : Structures conceptuelles pour l’analyse spatiale (Habilitation à diriger des recherches). Université de Rouen.
Saint-Gérand, T., Propeck-Zimmermann, É., Hached, W., Liziard, S., Medjkane, M., Conesa, A., Piombini, A., Kahn, R., 2021. Mobilité durable et mobilisation des ressources : une approche par l’ergonomie, in: Reigner, H., Brenac, T. (Eds.), Les faux-semblants de la mobilité durable : Risques sociaux et environnementaux, Mobilités & Sociétés. Éditions de la Sorbonne, Paris, pp. 247–266. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.psorbonne.108946
Somanath, S., Thuvander, L., Gil, J., Hollberg, A., 2025. Activity-based simulations for neighbourhood planning towards social-spatial equity. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 117, 102242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2024.102242
| Keywords | access ergonomics; sustainable mobility; multi-agent models; socio-spatial inequalities; decision support |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
