in Marseille, the free train against a polluting vehicle

The Aix-Marseille-Provence metropolis (AMP) votes in the metropolitan council, this January 19, 2023, its new policy on the low emission zone (ZFE). The latter has prevented, since September 2022, polluting vehicles from driving in the city center. The metropolis, in collaboration with the Paca region, wishes to reward the owners of a Crit’Air 5 or out of category car, who wish to part with it.

“As soon as a vehicle is sold, the owner will receive a free Integral Pass for six months, the time to find another car”, explains Jean-Pierre Serrus, vice-president of the region in charge of transport. The “Integral Pass”, created in 2018 by the region and the metropolis, costs €73 per month and gives access to TER, public transport networks and certain maritime services.

The first metropolis to favor a reward measure

With this measure, the metropolis wishes to achieve its two objectives in the fight against climate change: a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 and carbon neutrality by 2050. The national low-carbon strategy ( SNBC), set up by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, estimates that it would take “a 75% reduction in emissions by 2050”.

Of the eleven ZFEs, Aix-Marseille is the first metropolis to favor a reward measure. “Ecology never wins by being punitive,” explained Martine Vassal, president of the metropolis. “If they propose a measure without obligation, we can only approve, is satisfied Yves Carra spokesperson for the Automobile club, in charge of the rights of road users. We have always been against the establishment of EPZs for the exclusion of the most precarious from city centres. Marseille has the merit of looking for solutions”.

A more than effective symbolic measure

The solution will not benefit all the 1.9 million inhabitants of the metropolis, but only 18% of them. “The measure is aimed at the 314,000 inhabitants, the 172,000 workers and the 42,000 students in the low-emissions zone,” analyzes Jean-Marc Serrus. The ZFE represents only 8% of the surface area of ​​Marseille and only 0.62% of that of metropolitan France. The conditions for access to the Integral Pass therefore limit the scope of the measure.

Moreover, the people potentially benefiting are not all owners of a polluting car. As the establishment of the ZFEs approached, the prefectures took the opportunity to identify the motor vehicle fleet. “Only 4.1% of vehicles can no longer circulate in the ZFE due to bad sticker, including 1.4% Crit’Air 5 and 2.7% out of category”, indicates the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône. Nationally, only 6% of vehicles can no longer circulate freely in cities.

“Marseille en Grand” to abandon your car

“In six months, the time seems too short to replace his car,” analyzes Yves Carra. According to the spokesperson for the Automobile club, a full year of free public transport and trains would be needed to buy a car. “We want motorists to understand that they can go out, go to work and enjoy their leisure time without a car,” explains Jean-Pierre Serrus.

And yet, everywhere in France, anger is brewing against the inefficiency of TER and sometimes even against their absence. “We have no satisfaction with the train offer in the Aix-Marseille metropolis”, advances Gilles Marcel, president of the collective “La Voix de Nosterpaca”. According to the latter, the railway is a reliable alternative to cars only if “a train arrives at the station at least every 30 minutes”. For the time being, within the metropolis, only the line joining Marseille to Aix-en-Provence would be reliable.

Modernization of its public transport network

The metropolis then relies on the modernization of its public transport network to convince the inhabitants to leave the cars in the garage. The “Marseille en Grand” project, announced by Emmanuel Macron on September 2, 2021 and presented by the metropolis a year later, plans to multiply and modernize the transport offer there.

This “complete offer” of public transport “from north to south”, in the words of Martine Vassal, would make it possible to achieve the objectives of the fight against global warming. It will cost 2 billion euros, including 256 million euros in subsidies already paid by the state in 2022.

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