MSCA-COFUND-CLEAR-Doc - PhD Position #CD22-01: For a more sustainable mobility: understanding disability situations to better solve them

Sustainable mobility, a challenge for the city of the future, integrates the concerns of solidarity and the fight against inequalities, exclusion and discrimination of all kinds. Mobility is a determining factor in social inclusion and participation, and is a prerequisite for access to learning, medical or leisure facilities, as well as the possibility of working and participating fully, freely and autonomously in community life. Accessibility of transport is therefore a major issue, especially for people who have difficulty accessing it in connection with a disability or reduced mobility.

In France, the transport organising authorities (AOT) have been obliged to make newly built transport systems or those undergoing work accessible since the 1975 law on guidance for disabled people. The law of February 2005 ""for equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled people"" strengthened this obligation since existing public transport services had to be accessible to people with reduced mobility. The latter should therefore progressively benefit from an improvement in their travel conditions, or even be able to travel when they could not before. However, in France, since the early 1990s, national transport surveys have shown a constant rate of people who are ""inconvenienced"" during their travel, around 10% of the population. Furthermore, in the field, the current state of progress of the SDA (Schémas Directeurs d'Accessibilité des Services de Transport) drawn up by the AOTs and the PAVEs (Plans de Mise en Accessibilité de la Voirie et des Espaces Publics) which municipalities must adopt, highlights the need for knowledge of issues of reduced mobility to feed into travel diagnoses, both in terms of covering needs and in terms of changes in practices (e.g. modal shifts) or an increase in the number of people having access to public transport. However, little is known at present in France about the populations that have difficulty in travelling in relation with a disability or reduced mobility (mainly disabled or elderly people), as well as their travel practices (or lack of travel) and their needs in terms of access and mobility.

In line with interactionist and social approaches of disability issues (Fougeyrollas 1998 and 2010, Albrecht et al. 2001), as opposed to a so-called medical approach, this thesis will aim to identify the mechanisms that lead to the production of disability situations in the use of transport, by looking at all the factors, both personal and environmental (physical and social environment), that interact to produce these situations and hinder the social participation of the people concerned. It will question the impact of making transport systems accessible - in particular via the use of digital technology - in reducing these situations of disability, as well as the gender differences that can be observed and the interaction with economic or location difficulties.

The methods of investigation will integrate:

- The analysis of existing data (notably French national surveys) on the travel practices of disabled people and people with reduced mobility

- The elaboration, collection and analysis of a first survey of people with disabilities (motor, sensory, intellectual or psychological), of the ""life course"" type, as well as a second survey using semi-directive interviews, to examine in greater depth the difficulties encountered and the means to overcome them.

- International comparisons (in particular with Canada) on travel discomfort and its determinants.

Références

Albrecht G. L., Ravaud J.-F., Stiker H.-J. (2001) L'émergence des disability studies : état des lieux et perspectives. In: Sciences sociales et santé. Volume 19, n°4, 2001, pp. 43-73.

Dejoux, V. (2010). Situation de handicap lors des déplacements : caractéristiques individuelles, pratiques de mobilité, environnement physique et social. Thèse de doctorat, université Paris-I, Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Fougeyrollas, P., Bergeron H., Cloutier R., St-Michel, G. et Côté, J. (1998). Classification québécoise : Processus de production du handicap. RIPPH https://mhavie.ca/boutique/fr/classification-internationale-modele-de-de...

Fougeyrollas, P. (2010). Le funambule, le fil et la toile - Transformations réciproques du sens du handicap, Presses Universitaires de Laval, Québec, 338 p.

Meissonnier, J. et Dejoux, V. (2016). The Commented Walk Method as a Way of Highlighting Precise Daily Mobility Difficulties – A Case Study Focusing on Cognitive or Mental Diseases, Transportation Research Procedia, Elsevier, 2016, 14, pp.4403 - 4409. 〈10.1016/j.trpro.2016.05.362〉

Meissonnier, J. (2020). Faire face ou faire avec. Situations de vulnérabilité et situations de handicap, Populations vulnérables, Univ. Bourgogne (2017-..) ; Néothèque éd (2013-1016), 2020, Mobilité et vulnérabilités, https://journals.openedition.org/popvuln/1249"