APPROPRIATION OF INNOVATIONS IN THE TRANSPORTATION
Automobility in Denmark.
Pascale BLYTH (University of Aarhus/CET)
Benjamin SOVACOOL (University of Aarhus/CET)
Denmark is often touted as an example of a “green country” in Europe and further afield, famous for integrating a high share of renewables into its energy system, improving the balance of payments by subsidizing technological development in renewables and promoting non-motorized transport.
However, even in societies such Denmark committed towards lowering their greenhouse emissions, decarbonizing the transport sector is a hard nut to crack. Despite generous tax incentives to consumers for purchasing electric cars, in 2013, out of a total of 2 237 122 cars, just 1 274 were electric. 28% of vehicles are diesel, with combustion engines growing significantly the last 20 years and forecast to do so even more; along with distances travelled by car, already the highest in Europe. Consumer incentives are due to end in 2016 and car-sharing is not widespread.
This paper presents research carried out on automobility in Denmark – to understand why the private transport sector has remained unsustainable in a country with a green narrative. It examines the Danish perceptions of ridesharing, including the elements that influence the adoption (and non-adoption) of ridesharing. Interestingly, Danish drivers and commuters appear to be split on the topic, with negative perceptions including lack of availability; difficulty finding carpools, viewing carpooling as unsafe or unsecure, and expectations of social awkwardness, among others; and positive perceptions including cost savings compared to public and private transport, greater flexibility of travel times, and the ability to socialize with vehicle occupants – with “being green” not mentioned at all. The paper also presents research into the technology-based energy system in Denmark and how it impacts automobility. These contrasting views on carsharing and energy system perspectives lead us to conclude that existing theories and models may need to be fundamentally rethought, both in Denmark and possibly elsewhere.
KEY WORDS: automobility, electromobility, energy transitions, carpooling.
Assessing the acceptability of electric cars by the scenario method.
Patricia CHAMPELOVIER (IFSTTAR / Laboratoire Transport et environnement, Bron)
Chrystele PHILIPPS-BERTIN (IFSTTAR / Transport and Environment Laboratory, Bron)
Lénaic POUPON (Université Lyon 2/GREPS)
The results presented are based on experimental research, which aimed to study the factors and conditions for individuals to swap their conventional vehicle for an electric car. The latter was assessed on two dimensions: first as an object through its functional characteristics based on reactions after a first driving test. The second related to its use in everyday life and practice change induced by its characteristics (limited autonomy, charging system) that are directly related to energy use. The purpose was to explore the profiles of potential users and the reasons to use an electric car. Finally, the travel behavior changes that could be induced by driving an electric vehicle were also explored.
We developed a methodology based on a placing in situation through the description of daily trips and the presentation of alternative scenarios. The purpose was to develop a method that provides non-users of electric cars with the contextual elements necessary for the evaluation of the electric vehicle characteristics (limited autonomy, home management, etc.) and the implications of its use on a daily basis. We assumed that individuals have no clear idea on concepts such as autonomy, or recharge time because they do not apply to combustion vehicles. This method has been integrated into a semi-structured interview divided into two phases: the first is a description of the car travels during a typical week, the second included a simulation of temporary and permanent use of an electric car.
Interviews lasted about an hour and were conducted with 69 people. All had been in possession of a valid driver’s license for at least one year and drove a car. Analysis of the interviews confirmed the low level of people’s awareness about electric cars (purchase price, operating, user cost) but also the unusual nature of the issues raised by its use as battery charge and recharge management. When projecting in a situation of use of an electric car, they realized that limited autonomy was problematic only for the less frequent trips and some of them imagined a new way of managing their travels that would involve combustion car rental for long journeys. Similarly, the charging time leads them to think about the periods when their vehicle is stopped (working time, night). Social motivations in relation to pro-environmental values also appear, facilitated by the individual benefits associated with reduced energy costs, but also the satisfaction of giving a positive self-image.
KEY WORDS: electric car, acceptability, use, scenario.
Faire rouler les autobus urbains au mélange de gaz naturel et hydrogène : quelle perception des usagers ?
Michel CARRARD (University of the Littoral Opal Coast /Laboratory Territories, Cities, Environment & Society)
Nicolas DUPUIS (University of the Littoral Opal Coast /Laboratory Territories, Cities, Environment & Society)
Hervé FLANQUART (University of the Littoral Opal Coast /Laboratory Territories, Cities, Environment & Society)
Due to the energy transition and the fight against climate change, new technologies of production, storage and use of energies are experimented. Moreover, some resistances emerged to face the deployment of technologies judged dangerous or harmful by populations (wind-power, methanogenesis, etc.). In consequence, social acceptance of innovations must be a main preoccupation. A demonstration program about a blend of natural gas and hydrogen instead of petrol as a fuel for city buses, which takes place in the North of France, shows the importance credited for this concern: to produce innovations in order to reduce environmental impact of energy technologies, comprehending the acceptance of populations.
Dihydrogen production by electrolysis must help the use of the lost wind, solar and hydraulic power production, and help provide non-carbon-emitting energy sources. Nevertheless, social acceptance of these technologies and their associated risks still has to be explored and understood.
That’s why the consortium made of the ADEME, the Urban Community of Dunkerque and GDF-Suez, with the aim of city buses running on Hythane (80% of natural gas and 20% of dihydrogen), prepared a study about the social acceptance of this technology before public demonstration. The study was realised in November 2014, with more than 700 bus users interviewed face to face with questionnaires. People were interviewed at bus stops or inside buses for 8 to 10 minutes. The analysis of results is in progress.
The main objectives are to provide a global representation of dihydrogen and to know if there are resistances about its use as a fuel. Questionnaires helped collect bus users’s opinion about hydrohen, the Hythane technology and the risks associated.
What are the resistances? What are their origins? Historical? Technological? Which populations are mostly implied? Which solutions can be proposed?
The presentation will try to answer to these questions, supported by the results of the study including bus user’s reports.
MOTS CLÉS : hydrogène, acceptabilité sociale, nouvelles énergies, risque, perception.
COMMOCLES : the role of mobility management in business and employee location choice.
Agathe DOUCHET (Catholic University of Lille/CRESGE)
Aurélie MONTIGNY (Catholic University of Lille/CRESGE)
The aim of the research project COMMOCLES is to analyze the impact of changes in mobility on choices of residence and activity locations by individuals and their employers, analysed according to whether or not a BTP had been deployed by the management in their business or institution.
The first stage of the COMMOCLES project was a state-of-the-art analysis of these questions, bringing together property professionals from businesses around the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region to gather their views on potential changes in the location criteria of businesses. Subsequent research consisted of establishing panels of businesses ”with” and ”without” BTPs (9 businesses), and conducting interviews with relevant parties. Finally, an online questionnaire was sent to employees in the businesses selected in the previous stage of research. The research showed that, overall, steps taken to manage mobility are effective in the process of supporting location change. Their direct effects are difficult to measure precisely, as their impact lies necessarily in developing the professional and individual mentalities and cultures necessary to opt for, anticipate, and adapt to change. However, the research showed that preparing employees to think differently, to anticipate and prepare for change, and to experiment with and even call into question their knowledge and managerial habits are all significant issues. The interviews and survey results agreed that a BTP can have an important role as an internal management tool, helping to raise awareness and encourage re-evaluation of individual and collective preconceptions and professional knowledge.
KEY WORDS: Business Travel Plan (BTP), mobility management, public policy, supporting location change.
The role of hydrogen in the design, manufacturing and social reception of a boat with passengers.
Dominique PÉCAUD (University of Nantes/François Viète Center)
The energy resulting from hydrogen has two qualities: it gains in independence with respect to fossil energies, and it reduces the CO2 emissions, even if its manufacturing uses other energies, renewable or not.
As project project promoters, the SEMITAN (Nantes’ public transport company) and the Hydrogen Mission gather various partners in order to design and manufacture a boat with passengers in urban environment that uses hydrogen as its energy source. The future boat will replace the current one to operate the crossing of the Erdre River in Nantes (France), between Port-Boyer and Petit-Port Facultés. It will also play the role of a demonstrator. In this context, the Institute of Man and of Technology (IHT, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Nantes) has been asked to analyze two dimensions of the project. First, it aims at understanding if and how using hydrogen as an energy source has an impact on forms of cooperation. Second, it tries to analyze the social reception of the future boat on agents, such as current and future passengers, local residents, organizations and sports clubs using the river in various ways, and boat pilots employed by the transport company.
This presentation gives an account of a first year of work. It outlines several logics of human and not-human protagonists acting in a socio-technical device. In particular, this analysis defines the agents’ representations of hydrogen in terms of technical or environmental progress, but also in terms of dangers and risks. It also addresses the role played by the sociological search-action undertaken by the IHT in the progress of the project, but also in the ability to define what a social innovation could be in the field of hydrogen propulsion.
KEY WORDS: Hydrogen, cooperation, social acceptability, relations between human and non-human beings, action research.
MOBILITY AND TERRITORY
What levers to change mobility patterns and reduce energy consumption?
Sylvanie GODILLON (research agency)
Gaële LESTEVEN (research agency)
Anaïs ROCCI (research agency)
As a way to reduce the negative externalities of individual car use, changing mobility behaviour is a challenge for governments. The latter cannot solely rely on technology to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and local pollutants. To reduce private car use, policies oscillate between incentives (information, awareness, development of new services, improvement of public transport networks, etc.) and coercive measures (restriction of parking and traffic areas for cars). Our proposal is based on several recent researches, studies and experiments (“state of the art” researches, quantitative and qualitative surveys) which focus on three levers that contribute to modal behaviour change: new mobility services (e. g. carsharing and bikesharing schemes) appear as triggers for multimodal behaviour, but are only available to a minority of the population; measures for the restriction of car use in urban areas (limited parking, congestion charge, etc.), while effective, raise problems of social acceptability and fairness and do not generate profound changes in behaviour; measures aiming at assisting people individually so they change their mobility patterns (individualized marketing tools) are developed internationally but remain rare in France. The latter help users move from intentions to actions and reduce their energy consumption, by providing them personalized information and opportunities to try alternative transport modes. Through a cross-sectional analysis on the environmental, social, and economic stakes of these levers, our proposal aim at understanding to what extent they generate changes in practices and representations of various modes of transport and thereby contribute to the reduction of energy consumption.
KEY WORDS: behavioural change, mobility, shared mode of transportation, individualised marketing, restrictive measures.
From residential location to energy consumptions in the house and through mobility.
Mathieu DURAND-DAUBIN (EDF/R&D/GRETS)
Vincent KAUFMANN (EPFL/Urban sociology laboratory)
Emmanuel RAVALET (EPFL/Urban sociology laboratory)
Lorris TABBONE (EPFL/Urban sociology laboratory)
The design of policies and interventions aiming at the reduction of energy consumption requires a good understanding of the social logics that explain consumption. In this perspective, this paper focuses on how geographic location can play a role on daily activities within and outside home, and on the resulting energy consumptions in the house and during mobility.
This analysis is based on an ad hoc survey of 2000 French households, in the late 2013. The questionnaire was focused on the relationship between daily activities, mobility and energy consumption. This detailed description was associated to a range of structuring questions about the choice of residential location and equipment, and more general values. Complementary technical information was also collected on the household building, appliances, and socio-demographics.
The survey data were then linked to territorial variables such as: employment and population densities; degree of economic and functional specialisation; distance of households from urban centres; presence and density of local infrastructure; distances from regional-scale infrastructure (e.g. highways, train stations and airports); and a social characterisation of these territories (socio-professional categories, income, size and structure of households…). Several databases from the French statistical office (INSEE) were used to perform this characterisation (Census, Base Permanente des Equipements).
Our initial analysis consists in clustering the respondents based on their stated daily activities and values, after showing these variables can be associated to form consistent lifestyles. We propose here to consider both short and long term choices respectively made at the individual and household scales. Then we study the relationship between these lifestyles and the properties of the territories, buildings, and technical environment in which they are found. We also propose to focus on the trade-offs between activities made at home and activities made outside. Finally, we describe how these various lifestyles, in combination with the associated territories and buildings, involve different types and levels of energy consumption.
This study provides specific insights on the central role of the territory and the resources it offers, which enables and constrains the activities carried out by residents and the subsequent energy consumption.
KEY WORDS: energy consumption, house, mobility, lifestyles, locations.
Uses of energy and mobility: a study of residential lifestyles.
Olivier BONIN (Paris Est University/ENPC/LVMT)
Frédéric DE CONINCK (Paris Est University/ENPC/LVMT)
Margot PELLEGRINO (Urban School of Paris/Lab’Urba ; Paris Est University)
Nadine ROUDIL (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, Paris Est University)
Acting on energy consumption related to urban mobility and housing means to know and understand the organization of the daily lives of individuals, the space designed by mobility, their relation with equipments, their way of living in the dwelling. It is particularly necessary to identify, on a day-to-day basis, the reasons for changes in practices leading – largely indirectly and unintentionally- to a greater or lower energy consumption (e.g. changes in the household composition, in supply of transport and services …).
This contribution will present the results of a qualitative survey (i.e. semi-structured interviews) carried out in 2013-2014 within 34 households in Montévrain and Bussy-Saint-Georges about their mobility practices and uses of energy in housing. The analysis of mobility adopts two points of view. First, a general and global vision is proposed, revealing the perception and the geography of the territories. This approach focuses on the analysis of mobility destinations and refers to a “balance” in the daily practice of the territory. In a second step, the interviews study proceeds to a more analytical exercise on modal mobility practices. Emphasis is placed on the occupants’ motivations in choosing their mode of mobility. The focus on residential energy consumption leads to identify key behavioural profiles and the “difficulties” often shared by the occupants for controlling and reducing consumptions.
This research is part of a larger study carried out by Urban Futures Labex in collaboration with the EPA Marne. It will be (in December 2014) the subject of a collective discussion on the results and the possible urban development strategies, associating Montévrain and Bussy-Saint-Georges professionals through the implementation of a workshop whose findings could also be presented at the 2015 JISE.
KEY WORDS: residential lifestyles, energy uses, urban mobility, changing practices, qualitative research and collective workshop.
City narratives facing the energy transition: the production of a metropolitan identity in Bordeaux, Cincinnati (USA) and Curitiba (Brazil).
Fanny GERBEAUD (Doctoral school SP2/ Emile Durkheim Center/ ENSAPBX/PAVE)
Patrice GODIER (Doctoral school SP2/ Emile Durkheim Center/ ENSAPBX/PAVE)
Given the unanimous finding of a changing climate which requires repositioning of urban policies, cities display energy and transport at the heart of their concerns. However, the very term “energy transition” has specific local meanings, which causes a wide range of actions and visions to think about the future of cities. To understand how the energy issue is modifying the urban thought and governance, we conducted an international comparative study from the perspective of mobility in Bordeaux (France), Cincinnati (USA) and Curitiba (Brazil). Each illustrates a past and ways to make the city closely linked to a socio-economic context. By analyzing discourses, transport network news, urban planning documents but also by interviews with various stakeholders, we could determine the “setting of the narrative” of city projects and underlying concepts (multimodality, equity, etc.). Generally, the definition of these concepts endorses objectives identified by urban authorities while promoting achievements already in place. It is less a question of “revolutionizing” the cities in question but to convince that the initiated projects and available skills will access to a better living together and strengthen the metropolitan exposure (ensuring its attractivity in the long term) on a basis of sustainability. The energy challenge appears, in this context, as a supportive tool to develop large-scale urban plans.
Inter-metropolitan competition can be clearly seen with Bordeaux that wants to rank among the European sustainable cities, with Cincinnati that wants to change its mining past into a virtuous economic future and Curitiba, although declining, that wants to stay an example in terms of urban planning and transport. Such initiatives provoke logically debates among residents and users, but also among the various actors (public and private) in charge of their implementation. If “energy transition” justifies the redistribution of markets – with the adoption of information and transport (metro, tram-train) technology – it may also cleave territories and indicate ambitions considered too expensive. Technological innovation and the weight of the public and private sector are therefore presented as critical in achieving the metropolitan transport programs. The place of private investors in Cincinnati is more important, whereas in Curitiba, the role of institutional experts is increasing to ensure political stability and transparency of initiated projects.
In this context, public policies tend to focus on integrating change in a continuity plan in order to bring the users together around the creation of a common metropolitan identity. The aim is the emergence of a “city actor”, supervisor or initiator of actions on the territory in order to better disseminate the proposed model.
KEY WORDS: narrative, international comparison, energy, mobility, metropolitan identity.
Understanding the strategies of households experiencing energy vulnerability in order to develop adapted public policies
Anne-Lise BENARD (démographe, Agence d’urbanisme de la région grenobloise)
Emmanuel BOULANGER (Directeur d’études habitat, Agence d’urbanisme de la région grenobloise)
A study on energy vulnerability in the French department of “Isère” was conducted by the Grenoble region urban planning agency in partnership with departmental council of Isère and « Ademe ».
The study is divided into two parts:
-The first part focuses on territorial aspects: Where are the vulnerable households? How many and who are they? What are the modifications on this analysis in case of an increase of energy prices? What kinds of actions are conducted by public authorities and associations to stop it?
-The second part focuses on sociological aspects: How households perceive energy prices? Do they feel threatened by the long-term evolution of energy prices?
The first part is based on energy simulations realized from data of INSEE and RAEE.
These data allow us to detect territories and households who are vulnerable to energy prices.
According to the Insee, 15% of the French households have difficulties to pay their heating bills and 10% are potentially in a situation of energy vulnerability because of their fuel consumption due to constrained urban transportation (job, shopping and health).
A few households are concerned by these two problems, becoming doubly vulnerable.
In order to complete this approach, a qualitative survey exploring energy consumption of vulnerable households was conducted.
This survey leads to a better understanding of the perception of the households on energy costs and the strategies deployed by them to decrease their energy budget (involving the residential and transportation needs).
Thirty interviews were conducted with middle-class households who are owners and who live in suburban areas or in Isère’s mountains.
First results show that households are proactive for developing strategies: installing a wood boiler, powered off electronics devices, roof insulation, using various and new ways of transportation (like carpooling), grouping activities on a trip …
However, households do not have a lot of flexibility to limit their consumption when they are confronted with increase in energy prices.
Another problem is linked to their owner status. Households are trapped because of the devaluation of their housing.
Nevertheless, selling their home is not a solution for them.
Public authorities should offer alternatives in relation with the household’s desires.
The solution may be to involve households as early as possible in public energy consumption policies.
KEY WORDS: residential lifestyles, mobility, house, residential strategies, energy consumption, vulnerability, qualitative research.
Energy-related economic stress at the interface between transport, housing and fuel poverty: a multinational study .
Giulio MATTIOLI (Leeds University/ Institute of Transportation Studies)
In the UK at present domestic energy issues are framed in terms of reducing energy consumption and emissions, while at the same time taking into account fuel poverty (an established area of interest for British policy and research). However, transport poverty has not yet attracted the same attention, despite the strong British tradition of transport and social exclusion research. Notably, the interrelationships between transport- and housing-related economic stress are under researched. The debate is more advanced in France where notions of ‘energy precariousness’ and ‘vulnerability’ have been applied to both sectors. The paper builds on a multilingual literature review to illustrate how these issues have been linked (or not) in France, Germany and the UK, highlighting similarities and differences in understandings of deprivation across the transport / housing energy divide. Based on a quantitative secondary analysis of national expenditure survey data and EU living conditions data using clustering & latent class analysis techniques, the paper puts forward a typology of ‘transport poor’ households, taking into account their levels of housing-related economic stress and material deprivation. Notably, emphasis is given to the consequences of economic stress for low-income, car-owning households in car dependent areas, highlighting similarities and differences between the national case studies. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of the findings for the distributional and total demand implications of energy demand reduction policies and scenarios.
KEY WORDS: transport poverty, fuel poverty, affordability, housing, social exclusion.
Mobility vulnerabilities in sparsely populated territories: renewing ways to design support for daily mobility.
Sandrine DE-BORAS (Docteur en Économie, Mention Transports /Direction Stratégie et Innovation Transdev)
Marie-Hélène MASSOT (Université Paris Est Créteil/Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris)
If sprawl is synonymous for many French people with ownership of a house that is for many, the realization of a whole life, it is also synonymous with the emergence of vulnerabilities related to mobility. Defined by a weakness or an inability of people to anticipate or resist to a hazard, vulnerability of a person reflects a level of risk exposure when this hazard occurs; this exposure requires in this case, intervention, assistance, protection. Today, in low population density areas built on an autonomous and fast moving standard, live 40% of French population with a growing part affected by these vulnerabilities. Access to amenities and social inclusion will indeed imply the use of the automobile which requires the economic resources and / or physical, cognitive skills, dramatically absent for some. The “autonomous mobility limitation or absence ” (Orfeuil., 2003; Massot & Jouffe, 2013, Mignot et al, 2006), are eroding a “generic mobility right” (Ascher, 2000, 2006), introducing a risk of social exclusion for some and possibly a vitality reduction for territories.
The mobility vulnerabilities are significant in their effects although they are still poorly understood and poorly measured due to their multidimensional aspects and due to a visibility punctuated by cyclical developments. Therefore, how to identify these personal and territorial vulnerabilities, how to anticipate and allow everyone access to amenities in a context of local public found reduction and unemployment development ?
Steeped in this context, our communication describes and analyzes support solutions for mobility vulnerabilities whose sparsely populated areas are suffering. This relates to exploration of mobility management methods, conducted in Bourgogne (France), based on a collaborative innovation process conducted within the framework of creative workshops with local stakeholders. The explicit assumption of this work is that it is in this diversity – of sectors and actors – and at this scale – local – that corresponds fruitful innovation and good adhesion to support solutions in face to vulnerability mobility because elaborated in common.
This article reflects this approach and the development of the tool developed to bring out solutions and different results. The first set of solutions is expressed through a presentation of mobility services. The second set reports on the evolution of public territorial action related to mobility standards and more extensively to developments in processes, decision, design, implementation, governance, but also funding.
MOTS CLÉS : : Public policies and territories, transport and Mobility.
What are the strategies of households experiencing energy vulnerability in order to cope with rising energy prices?
Anaïs ROCCI (6t Research agency)
This proposal presents some results of a qualitative survey to explore the coping strategies of vulnerable households in the face of rising energy prices in the domestic sphere, but also in the residential and travel patterns.
This survey was conducted by 6t-bureau de recherche, a French mobility-oriented firm, as part of a research program funded by the national agency PUCA (Urban Development Construction and Architecture Plan) in partnership with the IAU-Ile-de-France (Ile-de-France Regional Urban Planning and Development Institute).
The methodology is organised into two parts helping us to understand their arbitrations under heavy budgetary constraints. The first part is based on one-hour qualitative face-to-face interviews conducted with thirty vulnerable households facing energy vulnerability in the suburban areas of Ile-de-France. The second part includes a “prospective game”, based on photographic illustrations, simulating the effects of an increase of energy prices on their daily lifestyles.
We focus on the concept of energy vulnerability, which describes a “tense situation” in which many households find themselves, and which may lead to fuel poverty in a short-term. The complexity of the energy vulnerability process is considered in our work through a twofold thrusts: housing (electricity, gas, heating) and mobility (fuel prices). We analyse households’ coping strategies according to these twofold thrusts along their individual life paths and their daily activities.
The results show that households are multiplying the most effective strategies to limit their spending by adjusting their flexible expenditure items. However, the choices of locations, and the travel constraints that result from it, remain irreducible expenditures stemmed from compromises. Home ownership is a guarantee to limit potential future risks.
KEY WORDS: energy vulnerability, travel, residential strategies, adaptation, energy price.
Home-ownership: Do energy criteria explain location choices?
Joël MEISSONNIER (CEREMA – Direction territoriale Nord-Picardie / Département “Transport-Mobilité”, Groupe “Mobilités et territoires”, Lille)
The Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) try to define the energy performance of buildings and provide a framework that is the basis upon which public policies offer incentive measures such as eco-loans, zero tax credits, the participation of employers in the construction effort… Before selling or renting, the assessment of the energy performance of buildings was made mandatory on a European scale further to a directive coming both from the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union regarding the energy performance of buildings (directive 2002/91/EC of 16 December 2002). Displayed in real-estate agencies and required to the notarial file the certificates may guide the residential choices and should encourage households to prefer the energy efficient housing. Public policies thus contribute to make people aware of the energy dimension.
The paper first questions the energy dimension as a housing choice criterion. It seems hardly appropriate to characterize the arbitration process among the home buyers. Regarding a residential choice, people enter in a kind of sedimentation process. As we know since the seminal work of Herbert Simon followed by those of Haroun Jamous and Lucien Sfez, the viewable part of a decision (a person, an order, a date…) hides numerous interactions that took part into the decision. This decision is not so clear, unequivocal or uni-personal. It is above all a result of a long term social process.
As a second step, we focus on energy dimension of the housing location choices. We base on a survey conducted through the Transenergy research (ANR). About forty semi-structured interviews were completed among households in home ownership. Whenever possible, we have tried to repeat these interviews at several times of the residential arbitration process in order to seize its evolution over time. This research is focused on localization strategies of the home buyers in Lyon and Lille. These strategies illustrate how people use the “energy criteria” in reality. Reportedly, daily mobilities due to the siting of housing are largely embedded in a complex needs solving process. Beyond localization and daily mobility, the households can change their routines and activities programs.
Instead of leading to a localization choice based on “energy criteria” assessed by labels, should we not prefer a public policy leading to a more personalized support when households move house? Why don’t we consider skills of energy information advisors and housing advisors (ADIL) for contributing to help households in their residential choice in a sustainable way ? Instead of narrowing the range of housing locations possibilities to a few theoretical criteria, we should deal with the full complexity, the variety, the temporalities of household’s daily mobilities and travel behaviors.
KEY WORDS: residential location, energy criteria, daily mobility, qualitative survey.