Geneva and Vaud: cars used less, travel time up
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Policies to encourage greater use of public transport are paying off, a new study by EPFL researchers shows. People in cantons Vaud and Geneva haven’t changed the number of kilometres they travel but they are spending more time moving and less time in cars.
“Policies encouraging public transportation and foot and cycle travel have been in place for more than two decades. Their effectiveness is reflected in the latest statistics coming from the cantons of Geneva and Vaud; people have changed their travel behavior,” shows a report on the research, issued 25 March.
Geneva has more walkers than anywhere in Switzerland
Public transport is benefiting but so are the travelers themselves, who are also spending more time walking and riding bicycles. The in-depth statistical analysis shows that Geneva has more walkers than anywhere in Switzerland, with 37 percent of trips taken on foot, a percentage increase of 8 points in 10 years. Walking and cycling combined account for 52 percent of trips.
Walking to work has had a major boost, with pedestrian commuters jumping from 23 to 31 percent in 10 years.
Vaud is not far behind, with walking accounting for 31 percent of trips, a 6-point increase.
1.5 hours a day on the go
The down side of this is that public transport and moving on foot or by bicycle tend to increase travel times. It’s risen slightly in recent years to 83 minutes a day. The distance traveled per day on average has remained fairly stable, though: 31 km in Geneva and 41 km in Vaud.
A little more than one-fifth of our time is spent traveling for leisure activities and a shade less for shopping. The researchers believe that longer store hours and some weekend openings accounts for an increase here.
Among the changes that took place during the first decade of this century:
- an overall reduction in the use of cars. “The percentage of households without a car increased (one in four GE, one in five VD) and this should continue to increase given that young people are obtaining their drivers’ licences later, or sometimes not at all. Among 28-25 year olds, nearly half of those responding to the study did not have a license to drive (48% GE, 42% VD).”
- The number of people with public transportation passes increased by 16 percentage points between 2000 and 2010 (50% GE, 46% VD).
- “The number of motorbike/cycle commuters has more than doubled among the inhabitants of suburban Geneva (from 7% to 15%). In Vaud, these trends are similar, although inhabitants also favor using the train for their home-work travel, with a doubling in the number of train commuters to 7% (+4 points).”
Geneva no longer a city of commuters, Lausanne loves its new metro
Geneva is no longer the destination for commuters it once was, but “is now experiencing an outflux of its inhabitants, particularly those of the inner city, as they commute to jobs in suburban neighborhoods or the wider Lake Geneva region.” Vaud has embraced public transport with enthusiasm, in part because of the overhaul of Lausanne’s public transport system between 2005 and 2010.
The researchers note:
“‘The result of our research is a detailed picture of the mobility patterns of the inhabitants of the two cantons and the major changes recorded since 2000. No other Swiss canton has done this analysis to date,’ says study coordinator Sébastien Munafò. The study’s objective was to analyze the 2010 statistics from the FOS’s Mobility and Transports Microcensus, and compare it with those of 2000 and 2005.”
Munafò is a researcher in EPFL’s Laboratory of Urban Sociology (LaSUR) and the University of Geneva Mobility Observatory.