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1 Introduction

«Our future mobility will not be shaped within a unique framework but within a combination of various innovations. This future is being mainly built by private actors but public policies must support and guide their progress» (Chriqui 2010). This introduction to the analysis of forthcoming new nobilities shows the complex transition towards the ecosystem of smart mobility and the impact of public policy in this transition, putting governments as key players in mobility challenges, endorsed with a new structuring role.

If the XXth century boosted individual carbonized mobility, the XXIth century may open the path for a multimodal, low-carbon and connected mobility, towards a new mobility paradigm (Donada 2013), a paradigm urging to rethink not only technology, energy or socio-economical, ecological and political issues but also industrial strategies facing a transforming ecosystem whose limits are expanding far beyond the frontier of the traditional car industry.

This transformation of the automotive industry into the ecosystem of smart mobility still asks the question of sustainable development since smart mobility won’t directly resolve neither urban congestion nor security or energy resources management. These issues need appropriate public policies and new public interventions. Yet the question of the type and level of public intervention is still open, different levers are being designed between incentives and constraints.

Therefore in this chapter, we will explain how governments, as various as local, regional or national levels, implement new regulations, coupling incentives and coercion, in order to shape a sustainable urban mobility. We’ll show how the transformation of the automotive industry into the ecosystem of electro mobility is taking place by putting governments as key players in mobility challenges, endorsed with a new structuring role.

The chapter is organized with two parts. The first part presents different regulations implemented by local, regional and national governments, as well as taxation, capital-intensive investments or energy policies with regulatory constraints, to illustrate this new urban paradigm examples of innovative urban policies in the world of megacities in Asia, Europe and the USA will be presented as well.

The second part focuses on the example of France. We explain the role of governments in the shaping of the ecosystem of smart mobility with creation and development of opportunities for all actors of mobility, aiming at developing sustainable urban mobility, largely based on digital technologies and disruptive innovations such as the self-driving connected car which force the legislator to revisit regulations.

2 The Challenges for Urban Mobility: To Decarbonize and Decongest the Cities

For many years now, major world cities have been facing mobility-related problems, such as bottlenecks, noise, pollution, greenhouse effects all these problems are related to the huge place occupied by cars yet. Worldwide, 700 million cars are on the roads for 7 billion people; 2015 was a year of record sales with over 80 million vehicles sold worldwide. In 2050, world population should reach 10 billion among which 80 % will live in a few megacities. According to Freyssenet (2015), more than 90 million cars have been produced in 2015; the number should increase by 5 % per year for the next ten years. The car production massively developed during the last XXth century and should still increase for the forthcoming years regarding the huge existing needs worldwide. Yet needs are not equal around the world.

The Chinese car market continues to grow at about 10 % per year and the U.S. and Japanese car markets are doing well. In 2014 France counted about 38.2 million vehicles according to the CCFA, an increase of 0.2 % compared to 2013, although economic growth has declined and sales of new vehicles have decreased. Among world cities the overall trend shows still rising car uses even though we notice differences between developed countries and emerging market.

This increase induces of course negative impacts on public health. In fact, a study of the American consulting company Little (2014) shows how urban politicians have to tackle multiple challenges among which mobility constitute a major issue, either for economic development or public health.

The efforts worldwide to reduce greenhouse gases, fine particles and to decongest cities should change the purchasing behavior of motorists and encourage them to less use their car in the city, preferring shared transportation or the use of cleaner vehicles. Is it to say that cars will disappear from urban centers or should they be renewed in order to better fit the new urban landscape?

For a decade now, public policies have been converging to ease the implementation of a smart mobility bridging at least six dimensions (Navigant Research 2016a):

  1. 1.

    Citizen well-being: quality of live, safety, security, air quality, health improvement

  2. 2.

    Environmental sustainability: emissions reduction, improve land use, energy conservation

  3. 3.

    Smart cities: information services, mobility hubs, charging stations, city landscape

  4. 4.

    Economic viability: economic efficiency, global connectivity

  5. 5.

    Smart energy: energy efficiency, V2G integration, EV charging

  6. 6.

    Smart government: investment, policy and regulation, integration and connectivity, smart cities platforms.

2.1 Public Measures: Local Regulations and National Policies

The States, the European community and local authorities are implementing urban mobility policies, leveraged either by incentives (such as inter-modality and taxation) or coercion (such as speed limits, urban tolls), imposing global guidelines aiming at reducing noise or pollution: the CO2 reduction target set by the European Commission is one such example. To meet these challenges, governments are facing the requirement to completely resize urban transports. They make use of various measures, such as national and local regulations and taxation, investments in infrastructure and equipment.Footnote 1

The European Commission adopted in 2008 various regulations based on the energy-climate balance. The main objective is to set up a common European energy policy to fight against the climate change. Initially, it promoted a clear objective resumed by the “20-20-20”, i.e. the energy-climate balance should push the rise of renewable energies up to 20 % of the global energy’s consumption, help to reduce by 20 % of the CO2 emissions, and to increase by 20 % the energy efficiency. These objectives should be achieved by 2020. The energy-climate balance gave birth to several legislative texts, in particular the regulation 443/2009 which incites to the development of more ecological vehicles (95 g of CO2 emissions/km in 2020), as well as the directive 2009/28/CE for the promotion of biofuels (at least 10 % of gmpbam consumption in 2020).

In Germany, the federal government promoted the Energiewende: the transition from a nuclear and carbonized energy towards a more reliable and sustainable one. The Legislative support for the Energiewende was reinforced in 2010 targeting different achievements by 2050: mainly greenhouse gas reductions of 80–95 % and a renewable energy target of 60 % (Buchan 2012).

Different practices are implemented accordingly to countries regulations and culture (Leurent and Windisch 2013). The Delft report (2011) confirms the heterogeneity between European countries by presenting not less than 18 families of financial and non-financial political instruments; each family counts dozens of actions.

In January 2014, the consulting firm Arthur D Little led an evaluation of maturity and performance for 66 cities around the world. The analysis based on 11 criteria such as the modal mix, the weight of public transport, the number of car per capita, CO2 emissions, average travel time gave a score to each city ranging from 0 to 100. North America’s score, 62 points, is below the average (64.4), barely surpassed by South America at 63.6 points, against 71.4 for Western Europe; the highest scores are obtained by Hong Kong and Amsterdam which lie above 80. Only 15 % of studied cities stand above the 75 % mark.

China, the world’s biggest car market, suffers tremendously from urban driving, as for instance Beijing counted 7 million motor vehicles in 2015. To overcome the explosion of the number of vehicles, the city of Shanghai implements monthly auctions to get license plates. Thus the local government can control the number of new registered vehicles.

To solve these problems, governments are facing the need to completely resize urban transports. They make use of various measures, such as national and local regulations and taxation, investments in infrastructure and equipment.

Local governments in cities have also adopted regulations in the alternative control or coercion. The example of Curitiba, a Brazilian town south of Sao Paulo, is particularly interesting. Indeed the town council has since the early 70s implemented an innovative policy on public transport that has been imitated by many developing cities in the newly industrialized countries facing pollution, poverty and huge traffic jams. In 1974, the Curitiba’s council took the first initiative to boost public transport, after decades of automotive development and created the first bus lanes.

In 1991, at a time when all cities with more than one million inhabitants chose a very expensive and destructive underground, Curitiba opted for a bus system much cheaper but integrating all the advantages of the underground such as (1) specific bus stops on the main roads, (2) limited waiting time, (3) extra-long and bi-articulated buses (270 passengers) driven by a single employee, (4) access facilities for disabled persons, (5) a large network interconnected with circular routes with 340 buses driving on 1100 km of lines that crisscross the city. Connecting terminals hosts services and shops.

As a result, nearly 70 % of the inhabitants of the urban area and 85 % of city inhabitants use public transport to get around (3.2 million people in the metropolitan area and 1.5 million for the city itself). Curitiba invented the concept of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or Bus with High Service Level (BHSL). In June 1996, during the second global summit of mayors and urban planners held in Istanbul, Curitiba was rewarded as the most innovative city in the world. The transport system was also rewarded by the English Building and Social Housing Foundation (EBSHF).

The city has experienced strong growth over the past decade and in order to further limit the use of cars, the city’s council decided to develop transport by bicycle by launching, late 2013, a plan to build 300 km of cycle paths to be completed in 2016. Finally, Curitiba’s council seeks above all to reconcile economic development and sustainable development by developing intermodal transport.

2.2 Prevalent Objective: A Better Quality of Living

Following the example of Curitiba many cities have experienced local policies targeting two main objectives: to decarbonize and to decongest the city. The control of CO2 emissions is based mainly on traffic regulation with the creation of specific areas such as LEZ (Low Emission Zone) or HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle lanes) and the implementation of tolls or traffic ban.

Yet control and coercion still represent the corner stone of transportation policies in cities. Since 2006, the European norms on air quality have been consolidated, giving birth to the LEZ that largely expanded into Europe. The LEZ are the green solutions designed to improve the quality of life for residents and promote awareness of the inhabitants. They serve as a full-scale laboratory for new infrastructure and organized cooperation between public and private actors, as the development of a LEZ is based on an ecosystem bringing together public and private stakeholders for adequate infrastructure design, including intelligent traffic systems (ITS: Intelligent Transport System) for the management and control, development of dedicated lanes for different modes of transportation.

The city of London chose in 2003 the implementation of a downtown toll: only clean vehicles (less than 100 g CO2 per kilometer) do not pay the fees. This toll induced a real traffic decrease but bottlenecks remain and the air quality is still not optimum. Stockholm in Sweden chose the same traffic control.

In March 2016, almost 2000 LEZ are organized within European cities in nine countries with an unequal distribution: 85 % of the LEZ can be founded in Germany and Italy. The LEZ showcase technological and eco-friendly solutions to improve life quality. They are used as scalable experiments for the design of new urban infrastructures integrating Intelligent Transport System to pilot and control. Moreover the design of a LEZ leans on a dynamic ecosystem including private and public actors (ADEME 2014).

To go a step further, some city governments organised “car-free neighborhoods”, giving rise to the development of sustainable neighborhoods, aimed at creating a harmonious cohabitation between the different transport modes and, in fact, to minimize the place given to the car in the public arena, whether in parking as in traffic.Footnote 2 As an example, in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the inhabitants organized a poll to ask for the creation of a sustainable neighborhood without any car: 6000 persons accepted the deal; giving birth to the neighborhood GWL-Terrein.

These sustainable neighborhoods are not design with the fantasy of a city without a car, but are rather designed as invisible car neighborhoods. They are based on the principle that cars should not be seen on public space thanks to original solutions regarding circulation and parking. Car traffic and parking are constrained in favor of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Parking is disassociated from the constructions with privileged access to public transport in the right-line of the new order of priority given to collective transport.

These different sustainable neighborhoods also represent laboratories for the city of the future. Everything must be indeed thought that any journey within this neighborhood is made by non-motorized means and any way, to join other districts nearby, is feasible through other means than the car and mainly through more efficient and reliable means. Finally, if the most profitable neighborhood is a neighborhood without a car, it is necessary for the people to be ready to change their habits, especially since project deals not only with the creation of infrastructure but also with the lifestyle of the inhabitants. The creation of sustainable neighborhoods involves therefore thinking a new framework of life for the current inhabitants, but also for future generations. It implies also considering the proximity as an important asset for the people that can be easily evaluated by energy savings and CO2 emission reductions.

Creating a sustainable neighborhood obliges to reconsider the land: changing from a valuable asset to a non-renewable resource that has to be managed at best for the future.

2.3 Public Policies and Electric Vehicle Development

Although, for a century, EV have been emerging technologies (Fréry 2000), it seems that prospective scenario actually show exploding trends for the forthcoming decade (Jullien and Pardi 2013). Navigant research report (2016b) show that BEV (Battery-Electric-Vehicle) and PHEV (Plug-in-Electric-Vehicle) sales will reach 3 million by 2024.

The increase in EVs sales depends on 4 factors:

  • Technology developments: better batteries, faster charging, wireless charging

  • Air pollution concerns: cities regulations on CO2 emissions

  • Business model innovation: shared mobility leveraging EVs development

  • Policies and Regulations: fiscal and financial incentives.

Around the world, financial incentives for the purchase of an electric vehicle are expanding and start to show some results with a real increase in sales, even if the market is still narrow.

The Tokyo’s council started early 2000s to help Japanese drivers to by electric or hybrid cars with financial incentives. This policy has proved fruitful since, on the one hand, diesel cars almost disappeared in Japanese cities and, on the other hand, car makers made huge efforts to design less polluting car with electric, hybrid or even hydrogen engines. Meanwhile, diesel vehicles have drastically decreased not only in Tokyo but in the whole archipelago.

The Chinese government has also decided to boost electric cars sales: it forecasts 5 million cars sales with alternative engine (electric or hybrid) in 2020 and big investments on national electric infrastructure have been made since 2014. “Government policy had already started to encourage electro-mobility in 2001, when a key special project for EVs became part of the national high-tech R&D program. In 2009, the government identified EV production as one of several strategic emerging industries, creating a range of very attractive incentives and setting the ambitious targets of producing two million BEV/PHEV by 2020” (Altenburg et al. 2015).

In July 2014, the Chinese government cut off a 10 % tax for drivers buying an electric or a hybrid car associated with a RMB 6000 allowance (about $1000). These incentives are also valuable for foreign cars. US$ 16 billion will be spent to build a charging station network for electric cars. This infrastructure development is also supported by foreign car makers such as Tesla, the American electric car maker, seeking for new outlets for its production. In 2014 T possesses 200 electric stations and agreed with China Unicom, a Chinese telecom company, to build 400 more stations.

In France, the government confirmed his willing to increase the number of electric cars on the roads mainly in urban areas and introduced a super allowance (€10.000) for the replacement of a car older than 13 years by an electric car. This allowance may imply more than 1.5 million cars. The French government aims at supporting electric cars’ growth by strengthening restrictions and taxes on polluting cars.

The development of electric vehicles in France also leans on the modernization of the automotive sector, car makers and OEMs: the Fund for OEMs modernization (FMEA Fund) has been transformed into “Fund Future car”, with €270 million to promote the emergence of new champions in the sector.

Similarly, the U.S. Government launched in 2009 a plan of $14 billion for the development of high technology cars including $8 billion for three car makers willing to produce electric vehicles and adapt their plants to this production (Ford, Nissan and Tesla Motors). Finally, the Recovery Act allowed unlocking an envelope of $2.4 billion for 48 R&D projects including a good part for OEMs.

In this context, the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has benefited from a large part since it has obtained more than $2.4 billion in grants since 2009, with tax credits for its batteries factory in Nevada ($1.3 billion), various assistance programs in California (storage of energy…), and also benefiting from tax incentives relating to clean vehicles, 7500–11,500 dollars according to the States, which represented an indirect subsidy of 284 million for the constructor on 2014.

Worldwide public incentives for the purchase of electric vehicle are numerous and are beginning to bear fruit with the beginning of real sales growth, although the market is still small with less than 500,000 registrations in the world in 2014. The interest in the electric vehicle should however grow progressively as drivers can try them in actual conditions on roads thanks to car sharing organization implemented by either public or private operators such as in France: Autolib car-sharing of electric cars in city services’ (Paris), Bluely (Lyon), Bluecub (Bordeaux) or Autobleue (Nice) that promote mobility and inter-modality.

Leurent and Windisch (2011) analysis of public policies and projects in favor of electric mobility within an international review of national policies and regional projects showed that “most countries consider explicitly a development path made up of three steps: from Initialization by pilot projects and procurement initiatives, to a Long Run step where EVs hold a large share of the car stock, passing by a Medium Run step which involves taxi and shared-car fleets”.

Leurent and Windisch (2013) detailed public policies implemented in 6 European countries (Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Denmark, France, Norway), in the USA, Japan, China and India and the European Union as a whole. Their analysis underlines the fact that smart-mobility is fully embedded in larger “derived challenges mainly: (a) the organization of mobility together with the uptake of recharge infrastructure, (b) the interaction of the electric mobility system with the electricity net, hereby considering the energy storage function of batteries, (c) the technological progress and the industrial production of vehicles and various components. Overall, these stakes involve the community more than the individual vehicle user”.

The following second part of the chapter describes and analyses the specific case of public policies implemented in France, exploring how these challenges are being tackled by the French national and local authorities.

3 Public Policies in France: Toward a Sustainable Smart Mobility

Mobility in France is also experiencing a formidable transformation and governments, national or local, are major stakeholders in this transition, introducing a global approach of urban mobility.

In fact, «a global approach allows the integration of technological innovations within the social context they interact with (…) and the conciliation of collective and individual choices in order to open the door to a sustainable and peaceful mobility» (OPECST 2014). This will be possible thanks to the reinforcement of public policies in order to adapt collective choices to available resources and align economic, social and ecologic stakes. In the same time, governments must think how to associate citizens in the decision process and to propose new and more imaginative incentives (OPECST 2014).

The “Automobile Pact” released in February 2009, foresees a EUR 250 million loan for the industrialization of decarbonized vehicles. The “Grand Emprunt” (announced in December 2009) foresees EUR 750 million for the development of decarbonized vehicles. This funding will be invested in several research and deployment projects under the patronage of the French Environment and Energy Agency (ADEME). Specific funding has also been made available for the construction and development of a battery production factory with a capacity of up to 350,000 batteries. The eco-conception of batteries and their recycling are research priorities.

In order to assure the supply of appropriate recharging infrastructure, laws have been released that oblige every new building equipped with parking units to connect these to electricity supply by 2012. Car parks at work places have to be equipped with electricity connections by 2015. Further, EUR 60 million has been made available for the installation of 1250 public recharging points around 20 agglomerations till 2012. By 2025 a recharging infrastructure of 9.9 million points shall have been established around France (thereof 9 million private points, 750,000 public normal charging and 150,000 public rapid charging points) (Leurent and Windisch 2011).

But EV will not be the only vector toward a new mobility; a new organization of vehicles flows is being implemented, leveraged by digital technologies and a new way of thinking transportation. For the forthcoming decade at least, French policies will have to organize urban mobility combining four major dimensions:

  • Traditional modes: private cars, two- and three-wheels vehicles, taxi service, public transit, walking

  • On-demand mobility: car-sharing, car-pooling, bike-sharing, on-demand public transit

  • Supporting infrastructures and services: smart parking, integrated traffic management, EVs charging systems, mapping service travelers information systems

  • Technologies: data hub, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles.

3.1 A Mobility Leveraged by Digital Technologies

The new approach of mobility is necessarily global, coupling offers and equipment from different actors (public and private) and relying on the tools and technologies of digital communication. Increasingly, the economic model of urban mobility is more and more based on information and telecommunication technologies supporting the multi modal framework.

This is the objective of Optimod project, developed by the City council of the city of Lyon in France: to implement a single browser, giving the user all mobility options based on multi-transport to go from point A to point B, on the basis of different criteria. It will integrate all functions associated with the GPS and will provide the user a real-time urban navigation tool. The collection of traffic data, in particular, gave rise to experimentation of innovative tools: wireless sensors that are gradually deployed in the city, tracer vehicles with anonymized positions allowing reconstituting all journey schedules. For this project, the Lyon council organized a partnership between private companies such as Orange (telecommunications), IBM (data mining) and Renault (vehicles) to create the browser.

As another example, the city of Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines in Paris region joined the French car maker Renault to launch a car sharing service for urban transfers working instantaneously with an app that localizes the closest vehicle to be rent.

This global approach to the urban mobility also becomes a reality within Saclay, south of Paris that regroups several clusters (Mov’éo, Systém@tic and Advancity) who implemented the SYSMO 2015 project aiming exploring new mobility’s process. Carried by a pool of public and private companies (RATP, SNCF, Renault, Valeo, Continental), this project should build a union of all transportation options (public transportation, car sharing, carpooling, car or electric bike renting, all regrouped in a smartphone’s app).

3.2 The Car in the Next Future: From Possession to Usage

As mentioned in the previous examples, the economic model of the multimodal dynamics more and more includes the existence of car sharing or carpooling that encourages a more sustainable and collaborative mobility.

On the French market, the number of organizations proposing to bring together cars’ owners with non-regular drivers is growing (there are for example Buzzcar, Greenie01, Deways, Koolicar, Livop, Mavoiturealouer.com, Voiturelib). Different studies on car-sharing seem to converge to the following conclusion: the number of users will increase significantly over the next years (Ballet and Clavel 2007; Clavel et al. 2008).

The consulting company Navigant Research (2013) plans a phenomenal increase of the world market of the ride sharing, passing from 1 billion dollars in 2013 to more than 6 billion in 2020. The analyses of Ranke (2013) shows a similar progression, claiming that the number of users at the European level should indeed increase from 700,000 in 2013 to more than 15 million in 2020, and the number of shared vehicles from 20,000 to 240,000 over the same period.

The major French car manufacturers also entered the area, like the Citroën Company whose website comes to enrich new offers car-sharing oriented. These new services are car-sharing and carpooling (with covoiturage.fr). Starting from the premise that cars remain on average immobilized 90 % of the time, Citroën offers its customers to lend their vehicle when they do not use it. It is quite symbolic to see that an automaker, whose business model relies on the sale of cars, promote car sharing by definition opposed to buying car by individuals.

Another form of car-sharing, i.e. carpool-pooling, continues to make progress thanks to the rise of social networks and smartphones’ applications. Indeed, thanks to the emergence of “dynamic car-sharing” (also called “real-time car-sharing”), greater flexibility and greater speed of communication allow to offer instant car-sharing. 10 % of U.S. citizens use carpool, a figure that is expected to triple by 2020. The French company Blablacar, created in 2006, recorded 10 million users in 2014 and is expanding worldwide.

Indeed, the emergence of the “dynamic ride sharing” allows both a better flexibility and a higher speed of mobility. This dynamic ride sharing is also boosted by the democratization of smartphones and their applications offering geo-localization for a quick getting in touch. Chassignet (2014) shows that there are in reality several car sharing’s types, among which the “direct track” allows the customer to let the car in any station or even on the public road (for example, Autolib’ in Paris) or the “user-to-user” sharing organized on a web community platform managing direct links between car owners and car users (for example: Buzzcar, Drivy, Ouicar).

For sure, all these offers wouldn’t have encountered a so quick success if not supported by public policy, not only with the adaptation of regulations but also, as we presented it on previous examples, with large implication of local governments in the evolution of urban mobility.

3.3 The Role of Public Policies in the Emergence of the Autonomous Car

In France, economics and politics are evolving within a centralized state; this centralism should logically lead to a massive and active intervention of the national and local governments in order to meet the requirements of smart mobility. But in practice, decision process and actions need quite a long time to be taken and implemented. But as far as now, no regulation has been imposed. The national government has largely transferred the investment in infrastructures to local authorities. Consequently, many local initiatives have been emerging in place of national regulation.

We can observe a paradox within the two French car makers, Renault and PSA Group (Peugeot, Citroen). The State is a shareholder of the two companies but it apparently did not influence the design and production of an electric car in France nor within the two companies alone or in partnership. This situation underlines the permanent ambiguity between state directives on modern mobility and private strategies that should walk the talk. This distortion has slowed down the development of a sustainable modern urban mobility.

However, the new ecosystem of modern mobility leans on an innovation whose technologies are establishing a significant disruption: the autonomous vehicle. This automobile revolution forces the government to act differently.

A study of IHS Automotive (2014) considers that the fully self-driving car is not waited before 2025 but vehicles with automated-driving will represent about 12 % of the world sales in 2035 underlining besides that “the number of accidents will be close to zero for these autonomous cars, the road traffic could be then regulated and the air pollution mastered thanks to the development of programs optimizing the energy consumption”.

French authorities do not doubt that the autonomous car will transform the car industry. The CEO of the French car manufacturer Renault claims that two thirds of Renault’s sales amount planned for 2025 will indeed be related to software, on-line data processing and security systems. The car itself, produced by the manufacturers and OEM, will only represent one third of value. Therefor car manufacturers must worry with the arrival on the market of new comers like Google, Tesla or Apple that may be already very advanced in their programs.

Car manufacturers must react quickly. So did Nissan (Group Renault) that managed to have recorded in Japan its Leaf, a car equipped with a large automatic driver’s assistance.

Donada and Fournier (2014) analyzed the arrival of these big companies whose board have considered the new mobility as a source of strategic diversification (Samsung, BYD, Bolloré). With the same vision new comers are appearing today like giants of different markets such as IT sector (IBM, Google, Apple), energy or infrastructures (EDF, Air Liquid, Vinci, Veolia), networks open-source (Wikispeed), mixed structures of laboratories and companies (InEco project between researchers of Dresden and ThyssenKrupp) and public services (La Poste, ERDF)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬.

A reorganization of activities is already planned for French car makers that have to think about cooperation and partnership with new comers. But cooperation is complex and the question to know if users will quickly accept this disruptive innovation for their mobility is still asked.

This rapid arrival of new comers has induced not only a big change in the services’ offer to urban mobility but also important modifications in users‘behaviors and manufacturers’ strategies. Thereafter, the ecosystem of mobility is being reshaped; roles and the powers of the various stakeholders are evolving, giving birth to a new industry, the mobility 2.0.

French governments are rather positive, believing that the deployment of autonomous cars and all new forms of mobility, will help to smooth and safe urban traffic and reduce pollution. Nonetheless, this trend raises new issues, mainly the need to rethink the legal framework. Indeed the Vienna Convention, signed in 1968 by most European countries, specifies that the driver is solely responsible at any time for the behavior of his vehicle. But in an accident with a self-driving car, the question of responsibility isn’t so clear. What about the responsibility of public authorities that organized the transport policy and the one of the supplier that provided embedded technology or the manufacturer that integrates it to the car?

Nevertheless the French government is pushing French car manufacturers not to fall behind and to tackle the point to remain in the race—one must not forget that the French government is a shareholder of the two French car manufacturers Renault and Peugeot.

Strong partnership strategy has been deployed by the two companies. As an example, the Science Technologies Exploratory Lean Laboratory (StelLab) of PSA Peugeot Citroën was founded in 2010 to oversee scientific partnerships and coordinate the group’s research OpenLabs. StelLab is responsible for leading an interdisciplinary network that fosters discussion and dialogue among scientists and experts from the mobility industry. Its task is to identify and develop the new technologies and innovative business models of the vehicle of the future. StelLab is a very good example of public and private partnership that may be developed in France to tackle complex issues combining as well technological challenges as sociological trends and economical stakes.

Yet, fleets of autonomous car are not to be seen right away on the roads; prospective analysis forecasts progressive steps from traditional car to autonomous cars distinguishing 5 levels from full driver responsibility to full vehicle responsibility:

  • Level 1: vehicle provides drivers information warnings

  • Level 2: vehicle integrates detection and response

  • Level 3: vehicle is autonomous, driver takes control in emergency

  • Level 4: vehicle fully autonomous, occupant do not need ability to drive

  • Level 5: vehicle fully autonomous, connected and cooperating, optimized system operations and passive occupant experience.

Levels 4 and 5 are considered by French authorities as really disruptive and in the next future, French urban spaces will quite surely implement these last two levels on dedicated areas or lanes.

4 Conclusion

The development of a new mobility will not only cause a complete disruption of urban mobility services for users, but it will turn the table for all stakeholders evolving in the car industry (manufacturers, energy companies, computer scientists and public authorities).

Among these stakeholders, the public actor (i.e. local and national governments) plays a leading role in the world in transforming the automotive industry into the ecosystem of smart-mobility 2.0. The States, the European community as well as local authorities are implementing urban mobility policies imposing global guidelines for a sustainable responsible mobility framework. In fact, the real point is that “the new mobility is questioning politicians” (Donada 2014), and governments have to remain watchful and active in order to face the complexity of this new ecosystem of mobility, an open and multidimensional ecosystem whose borders exceed widely those of the car industry.

In the large and medium-sized cities of the world, various innovative actions at national or local level are carried out by the governments, in order to lead the evolution towards the new mobility. These actions aim at significantly improving quality of living for urban inhabitants.

But governments have to define the outlines of a sustainable and responsible mobility to use effectively the levers of the economic development for large cities that are still enlarging and growing. Politics have to reshape urban landscapes to encourage a new multimodal, connected and autonomous mobility. This will be the public challenge for the very next future. In that respect, governments are playing the game as well with incentives to boost as with constraints to guide towards the sustainable development for a new urban mobility.