Creation: April 2022 for a period of 42 months.
Composition and theme:
Research project coordinated by Dianzhuo Zhu (April 2022-January 2025), formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair, and Chiara Belletti (since January 2025), a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair, as part of a consortium involving ESSEC, Paris School of Economics (PSE), and BlaBlaCar. Funded by ADEME, the project is part of BlaBlaCar's development strategy, which, through its ‘BlaBlaModes’ project, seeks to become a multimodal (car, coach, train) long-distance transport platform. The research teams involved, in close collaboration with BlaBlaCar's Data Science team, are studying the behaviour of carpooling stakeholders (passengers, drivers, platforms) and, beyond that, seeking to analyse the behaviour of the different segments of supply, as well as users, in the traditional carpooling system and in a multimodal system. The research focuses on three areas. First, as is the case with new mobility systems, the aim is to understand how demand is segmented and the effects of complementarities or substitutions between modes of transport, but also to consider the governance and regulatory models to be implemented. A second area focuses on the environmental impacts and urban planning implications of carpooling systems. The third area, which is more focused on the digital economy, also aims to understand user behaviour and the impact on the market.
Within the Chair, a team of four researchers – two post-doctoral fellows and two doctoral students – is actively working to carry out this project.
Work organisation: The dedicated team has been operational since the start of the 2022 academic year. Close coordination has been implemented within the consortium.
Current themes in 2025:
- Analysis of demand sensitivity to journey costs
- Analysis of platform design through pricing mechanisms: recommended price, commission
- Analysis of carpool meeting points and prospects for the design of intermodal meeting points
- Multimodal choices
- Driver behaviour in relation to managing their reputation capital and selectivity
