How can we change the world of mobility to make it compatible with an ecological society?
Clément Moreux is the founder of Padam Mobility, dynamic transport-on-demand solutions adapted to areas where it has historically been difficult to access: suburban and rural areas, off-peak hours and for people with reduced mobility. Visit all their job offers.
A particularly polluting sector
According to recent studies, transport is the leading source of GHG emissions in France (28.7%). The private car alone accounts for more than half of these emissions, many of which could be avoided if viable alternatives existed.
In this respect, the challenge facing the sector is quite simple: to offer solutions that will enable us to decarbonize our travel by providing both a technical response and a response in terms of usage. It's against this backdrop that new mobility players are emerging, opening up exciting career prospects for those wishing to give meaning to their work.
Emerging solutions
Naturally, we're thinking of electric vehicle production, which is booming and heavily subsidized by the state. While all-electricity cannot be a viable solution without a reduction in the number of vehicles on the road, the carbon impact of an electric car over its entire lifecycle is much lower than that of a combustion-powered model, and all the more so if it is a retrofitted vehicle (a combustion-powered vehicle transformed into an electric vehicle).
At the same time, and particularly in urban areas, soft mobility is making a comeback. Urban bicycles, in their various forms (rental, self-service, personal, cargo, etc.), are all the rage these days. Whether new or second-hand, its modal share (i.e. the percentage it represents in usage) has been growing steadily over the past 10 years. In Paris, it stands at 5% and should, according to city hall estimates, reach between 19.6% and 28.5% by 2030.
Rethinking the mobility paradigm
However, these two approaches are not enough. To reduce our emissions, we need to rethink the way we travel. For example, self-driving cars account for 40% of local journeys, whereas grouping travellers together can reduce GHG emissions and costs, as well as traffic density and therefore air and noise pollution in the short term.
It's against this backdrop that new players in shared mobility are emerging, to facilitate not only carpooling but also other modes of travel such as shared transport on demand (public shuttles running on reservation, present in particular in rural and peri-urban areas). Highly acclaimed by authorities and experts alike, these means of travel should help reduce the number of journeys made by private car in many situations, and are therefore set to expand massively in the years to come.
This development is already well underway, with the result that the sector has seen a significant increase in recruitment to speed up the transition. Engineers, in particular, are particularly sought-after by companies, and will play a vital role in the design of low-carbon travel models.
Concrete opportunities for engineers
Whether it's creating batteries that pollute less, designing bicycles that are better adapted to modern uses, or creating algorithms and computer applications that allow us to envisage mobility in a different way, great projects and real careers are possible in this sector that's just waiting to branch out! Here, for example, is a non-exhaustive list of real job offers to help you find meaning in your job:
🪫If you want to work on designing batteries for electric cars, ACC recruteto Data Architect or Mechanical Engineer positions...
⚡...Where Time2Plug you could work on the installation of charging stations for vehicles, like Ingénieur.e Mobilité Electrique for example!
🚗 Are you a car-sharing enthusiast? Ecov recrute including backend and frontend developers, which is great news!
🛵 Or maybe you'd like to help transform the way we travel on a daily basis with Cixi, qui recrute as an Embedded Development Engineer or Safety & Cybersecurity Engineer, for example.
🚲 More of a cycling soul? Create the "Waze" of cycling by rejoignant Géovélo, which recruits iOS developers in particular.
🚌 Would you like to make public transport more intelligent and inclusive? Padam Mobility recrute ! We're looking for an Operations Research Engineer to develop our algorithms!
Don't miss the moving train/electric car/bike/bus!
Taking action
👉 Voir toutes les offres d'emploi dans la mobilité durable
👉 Retrouvez toutes les offres d'emploi de Padam Mobility
👉Se former aux métiers de la transition écologique et sociale