Article · February 23, 2026 · Paul de Rosen

An immodest op-ed for the candidates in the municipal elections

For the municipal elections, don’t overlook the vital issue of mobility. Listen more, and better, to your fellow citizens…

For the municipal elections, don’t overlook the vital issue of mobility. Listen more, and better, to your fellow citizens…

Urban mobility is one of the first points of contact between citizens and local public action. It conditions access to jobs, essential services, shops and leisure. When it works badly, it breeds frustration and political mistrust. Today, close to 48% of city dwellers say they feel “trapped” in their environment for lack of smooth mobility alternatives. When it is fluid and respectful of every use, it becomes on the contrary a powerful lever of trust and support for local public policy.

Mobility combines three attributes: it is central and daily in people’s lives, it is fundamentally local, and it can be improved through collective action.

To those attributes add another: it is visible, with a genuine “before/after” effect from well-executed investments and initiatives - a carpooling car park, new cycle lanes - with the ultimate impact of easing congestion and making traffic as fluid and safe as possible. The stakes are high: road irritability affects nearly 79% of motorists, who cite traffic jams as their main source of annoyance. More seriously, a 2025 study reveals that 43% of people suffering from anxiety or burn-out point to their commuting problems as a direct cause.

Citizen expectations are strong: 41% of French people see the development of public transport and carpooling as an absolute municipal priority. That vote is amplified by a strong expectation regarding purchasing power, given that a motorist spends an average of €416 a month on their personal vehicle, and that resistance to paying more for public transport remains high. 61% of French people are in favour of free public transport in their town, to support purchasing power and the environment.

To shape mobility policy accordingly, we need to better understand citizens’ satisfaction versus their expectations and travel motivations - and to avoid caricatures and the traditional, radical antagonism against car use. It is worth remembering that in France, while the car accounts for 59% of daily trips, it actually represents 75% of kilometres travelled nationally.

I therefore recommend in-depth, regular surveys to identify mobility needs and how well they are met, with four keys to making them genuinely useful:

• they must be unified and complete, covering every mode - cars, public transport, bikes and walking - without antagonising one mode or over-promoting another;
• they must be reliable, with a reliability rate of around 90%, especially when they help size critical and costly infrastructure investments;
• they must be continuous, to capture desired changes and the sometimes weak signals of dissatisfaction or insecurity;
• they must be practical and easy to communicate, including to citizens, to support awareness, analysis and collaborative interpretation.

Let us hope the coming elections reveal how much mobility weighs in electoral support - and that the new teams take up the subject to set a new starting point in improving mobility and citizen participation in that improvement.

Written by Paul de Rosen - President of IMPACT CONSULTANTS, growth partner to companies and local authorities, former executive in mobility and transport companies, investor in mobility technologies.