The Moovit application confirms a loss of users in public transport in Toulouse after the pandemic
Toulouse is the metropolis where the Covid has hit the hardest in terms of impact on mobility uses. Toulouse residents have abandoned public transport since the pandemic. Tisséo conceded it on France Bleu Occitanie during our special ZFE morning show: the company says it has lost 10% of its clientele since the pandemic and only having recovered half of the lost customers. But the trend is revealed by the annual report of the Moovit mobile application, a multimodal route calculator which claims 17 million users in France. “The decline in public transport has been one of the strongest in France, with an even slower post-crisis return“explains Moovit’s European Commercial Director, Mickaël Brami.
Habits disrupted by Covid
In Toulouse, the first mode of travel remains walking, closely followed by the use of the personal car which has increased. Moovit is also working with Tisséo on smoothing peak hours, on the modal relationship with park-and-ride parking, and to avoid solo driving by promoting carpooling. “Despite everything, there are always people who continue to use their vehicle alone, including on short journeys of only a few kilometers“, laments Mickaël Brami.
In its study which compares the transport habits of the inhabitants of nine major French cities, Moovit points out several changes in Toulouse. Starting with a extension of transport time : in 2020 on average, Toulouse residents took 33 minutes to get to work by bus, tram, bike or train compared to 41 minutes today. This represents ten minutes less than a Parisian but six minutes more than a Nantes or Nice.
If half of Toulouse travelers spend less than 30 minutes in transport, daily journeys of more than two hours by train, more anecdotal, are five times more numerous than in 2020. However, they only represent 3% of users of the app, probably former city dwellers who left to live far from the city thanks to teleworking and who have to come back from time to time.
The big breakthrough in soft mobility
A positive point to remember in this study: Toulouse is with Lille and Nantes the metropolis where you expect the least during your journey: a third of users wait less than five minutes.
And, unsurprisingly, bicycles, scooters and other electric scooters have grown with us: 12% of Moovit users say they use these machines daily; it’s twice as much as in Montpellier.