Mobility on islands & participatory processes: key learnings

To address the distributed and fragmented responsibility for mobility policy, infrastructure and operations, it would be important to have a well-functioning umbrella authority to help cooperation and coordination amongst the 6 public transport network operators, to help with tendering and contracting. The umbrella authority could serve as service centre for all services that are shared amongst the smaller entities.

The peers further recommended a holistic regional / island-wide approach to mobility planning, allowing to better coordinate the different entities involved in mobility governance. To mitigate potential conflicts between short election cycle and long-term mobility policy goals and projects, legally binding documents, rolling actions plans and private sector contracts can help ensuring continuity in mobility policy.

To improve the overall mobility situation and to address the endemic congestion problem, mobility policy should rely on regular data monitoring to raise quality data to better plan and manage the public mobility offer. Holistic mobility planning with attention to network coherence and measures to both address peak demand and to reduce demand peaks is helpful.

The true need to heavy infrastructure investments should be fully assessed including a cost-benefit analysis. The improvement of the quality of service, timetables, network, coverage and assets for public transport is necessary, with better attention to intermodal connections. Active modes of mobility should be promoted and integrated through MaaS platforms with the public transport offer.

While not solving the congestion problem, e-mobility should be promoted to decarbonize transport, coupled with a strong renewable energy development plan, linking green energy and e-mobility on the island, harnessing locally available resources and reducing energy import dependency. Ride-sharing and car sharing, ideally EV-sharing are all desirable policy choices for La Réunion.