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Applications like Waze or Citymapper will have to encourage users to take more eco-responsible routes.
ECOLOGY – #MoveLessPollute. Here is the slogan, already visible on advertisements for cars, which you will soon see appearing on journey calculation applications such as Waze, Google Maps or Citymapper, according to a decree published on Friday August 5 in Official newspaper.
“This decree aims to support, on the one hand, the transition of uses towards low-carbon mobility, in particular by acting on digital assistance services [c’est-à-dire les applications de trajets] travel, and on the other hand, to regulate the negative externalities of the use of these digital services”justifies the text.
A decree published the same day completes the decree and explains that the applications will display several messages: “For short journeys, favor walking or cycling”, “Consider carpooling”, “Going from 130 to 110 km/h on the motorway reduces your fuel consumption by 20%” Where “On a daily basis, take public transport”. The hashtag #SeDéplacerLesPolluer should also appear.
Apps will have to highlight the greenest routes
As soon as a user tries to plan a trip, the result should also display an estimate of the pollution caused, with the quantities of greenhouse gases and air pollutants (nitrogen oxides, PM10 particles) emitted by the different modes of transport suggested. Multimodal transport applications and sites, such as Google Maps, Moovit, Mappy or Bonjour RATP, must “to put forward” them “Itinerary proposals with the lowest impact in terms of greenhouse gas emissions”.
If the journey includes a passage by car over a portion where the maximum authorized speed is greater than or equal to 110 km/h, these applications must offer alternatives allowing a reduction in speed of 20 km/h, and therefore less emissions . But which will also be longer.
While they sometimes send motorists back to secondary roads, to the chagrin of local residents, these applications will now have to “strive to offer” relief routes “avoiding the massive use of secondary roads not intended for intensive traffic”. Unless these detours save more than 10% of the remaining travel time, or there is work or an accident on the main track.
The app must inform in the event of a traffic restriction
Applications must also inform users of any traffic restrictions, such as Low Emission Zones (ZFE), which are expected to multiply in the coming years.
Multimodal applications will also have to display at the end of 2022 the “data relating to the cycling network, carpooling areas and parking” collected in the database of the transport.gouv.fr website, and at the end of 2023 all public transport and shared vehicle offers (bicycles, scooters). These provisions were voted in August 2021 in article 122 of the Climate Law.
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