• 3 days ago
Carpooling, eco-friendly driving...
Here's what we can do to reduce the impact of our transportation.

Episode 11 of our series of stories on eco-citizen initiatives with French author Julien Vidal.
Transcript
00:00In France, the most emitter of CO2 is transport, with 29% of emissions, half of which goes for the travel of individuals.
00:06We will see together how to reduce the impact of our movements.
00:23So I see you coming, we're going to talk about transport and right away you tell yourself that we're going to hit those who have no choice but to use their car.
00:28Well no, imagine that today we all have the opportunity to make efforts to reduce the impact of our movements.
00:36Madeleine, hello, you work for the Mobicoop cooperative and we are going to talk together about one of the first solutions for those who use the car on a daily basis, co-driving.
00:44Yes.
00:45Well, come on, let's go.
00:46Let's go.
00:47By car.
00:48The particular interest of Mobicoop is that you are a cooperative, so these are people who are at the service of people and especially on co-driving routes, you do not take a commission.
01:04Mobicoop is a cooperative, as you said, we say for shared mobility, so the idea is that everyone shares their car and more generally their means of transport.
01:14And we aim to make mobility a common good, so accessible to everyone and that the fact of being a bit ecological in its mobility is accessible to everyone.
01:23Because in the end, there is the problem of the car, the main problem is the fact that it is generally occupied by only one passenger, since on average we have 1.1 people for home-work routes.
01:34Yes, that's it, we estimate that if we co-drive every day, on average for a 30-kilometer route, we can save everyone up to 2,000 euros per year, so it's pretty huge.
01:44And then co-driving, an act that might seem individual, can have a collective impact.
01:50Here, for example, we are typically in the case of the big city like Paris, in the traffic jams, and I read this absolutely horrific figure which says that when we go from 1.1 people to 1.7 in the occupancy rate of the car, all of a sudden, that's it, the traffic jams would disappear.
02:03So that's it, it's interesting and funny, this kind of figure, because it's a bit dreamy, we say to ourselves that we are really not far from being able to improve everyday life, because co-driving is also about reducing traffic jams, not just pollution.
02:18By the way, I take this opportunity, for all the people who do co-driving and the others, you should know that in the car, we can also practice eco-gestures, an eco-driving that would save up to 20% of fuel on all our trips.
02:31For that, there are five key gestures.
02:33The first is to always have these tires at the right pressure, to be well inflated.
02:37The second is to use at least, if not at all, its air conditioning.
02:43The third is to have a smooth driving, that is to say, to accelerate gently, not to brake in a too rough way, to anticipate as much as possible in its driving.
02:51The fourth is to make sure that we are not overweight, we can remove these roof bars, for example, that we would have installed for the holidays.
02:59We can also empty everything we have in the trunk.
03:01And the last one, of course, even if it may seem obvious, is to make sure that the vehicle is well maintained, that the drainages are made, so that the engine works in the ideal conditions for use.
03:26Thank you, Adelene.
03:28See you next time!
03:30See you next time!
03:34And when we are in the city, public transports are undoubtedly the best way to combine comfort, speed and reduction of our environmental impact.
03:42And when I tell you that public transports are much more ecological in the urban environment, here we are in a metro that emits up to 50 times less CO2 than a car.
04:13Taking public transports to reduce the impact of these trips is a good first step, but when we know that in the city, 50% of our trips are less than 3 km, we say that the best of the best is smooth mobility.
04:24And the best ally to travel in the city is the bike.
04:26You should know that in France, we are quite bad students compared to that, since only 3% of the population uses it on a daily basis.
04:32But in a country like the Netherlands, it is almost a third of the population who use it every day.
04:42And between the bike and the car, there is no match.
04:46On short trips in the city, the bike is faster, cheaper and better for your health.
04:52Why? Because we do sports every day a little bit, but also because the air inside the cabin of a car is more polluted than the outside air.
05:00Finally, seeing your way around is the opportunity to create a real virtuous circle.
05:06So what are we waiting for?
05:08Changing your world is changing the world, and participating in the construction of a better world starts with me.