Soutenance de thèse de Kang LIANG « Home-to-work commuting in France: micro behaviors and macro patterns »

Kang LIANG, doctorant à l’ENPC, soutiendra sa thèse le vendredi 21 novembre à 14h à l’ENPC (amphi Cauchy)

Jury

• Rapporteurs: Eric CORNELIS, maître de conférences à l’université de Namur et Cristina PRONELLO, professeure à Politecnico di Torino

• Directeur de thèse : Fabien LEURENT, professeur (ENPC)

• Examinateurs : Frédéric GHERSI et Anne AGUILERA, directeurs de recherche (LVMT)

• Co-encadrant de thèse : Rémy LE BOENNEC, chargé de recherche (CEREMA)

Abstract

In France, more than 40% of the population is employed. The vast majority of working people have a place of work outside the home, and commute there regularly: this is “home-work commuting”, also known as “pendular mobility” in the French context. This form of mobility is marked by cyclicality in space and time, routinization on the individual level, and strong social synchronization on the collective level, which is at the root of the morning and evening traffic peaks on transport networks (on weekdays). This Ph.D. thesis explores commuting behaviors across three analytical scales—micro, meso, and macro—within metropolitan France.

At the micro level, the thesis investigates the rhythms of commuting, and in particular, how commuting frequency is shaped by home-to-work distance, using data from the 2019 French National Mobility Survey (Enquête Mobilité des Personnes). The analysis reveals a strong inverse relationship between distance and monthly frequency. Specifically, trip frequency is consistently halved with each transition between distance bands, indicating a ‘distance-decay factor’ of approximately 0.5.

At the meso level, the focus shifts to the Île-de-France region. The study quantifies the share of workers employed in the region but residing elsewhere, analyzes commuting distances and transportation modes, and assesses the modal traffic shares and associated greenhouse gas emissions. The result highlights the significance of interregional commuter flows in the sustainability challenges facing the region. They make up only 6.5% of IDF workers, but contribute to 29% of overall commuting-related emissions.

At the macro level, we explore territorial variations in commuting structures across all French communes, using INSEE census data (MobPro). It characterizes the statistical distributions of distances from the commune of residence to, first, jobs occupied by the workers living in the commune and, second, to accessible employment opportunities. A statistical classification of communes yields six types, from hyper-metropolitan to deep rural, passing by metropolitan, para-metropolitan, sub-metropolitan, rural. The map of communes exhibits macro-patterns of communal types across the national territory.

Combining geographic and statistical approaches, this thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of the determinants and impacts of commuting. The results have implications for travel survey analysis and transportation modeling in the context of environmental transition and sustainable mobility.