LVMT - City Mobility Transport Laboratory

Research strategy

LVMT’s scientific purpose is to understand and model the interactions between mobility practices, transportation infrastructures, land use, and spatial planning. This object is studied in its “reality”, often on the basis of real cases, through the quest for patterns and regularities, and through cooperation between a wide range of disciplines: anthropology and sociology, geography and spatial planning, sociopolitical, socio-economic, and techno-economic approaches, mathematical modeling and computer science.

“LVMT: a research laboratory totally focused on the big contemporary issues relating to the future of the city and its sustainable mobilities. (AERES Report, 2014)

Research positioning

The scientific orientations are structured along four thematic axes:

► Mobility practices, access to the city,  urban perceptions;

►Territorial dynamics, location strategies, public action;

►Interactions between City and Transportation: spatial layout, transit planning, integrated modeling;

►Economic analysis and modeling of transportation and traffic.

The “object” of LVMT’s research is clearly visible in its choice to undertake the scientific management of Chairs supported by major mobility players

► VINCI, chair in the Eco-design of Buildings and Infrastructures, since 2008

► STIF, chair in the Socio-economics and Modeling of Mass Transit, since 2010

► Gares et Connexions, chair in the Reinvention of the 21st-Century Station, since 2012

►SNCF, chair in “New Economic Approach to Regional Mobilities”, since 2014

Alongside these long-term partnerships, the laboratory pursues a series of action-research projects. In 2014, the laboratory’s public interest projects consisted of: involvement in the VéDéCoM Energy Transition Institutes, in particular Efficacity, and in the Railenium Technological Research Institute; heading of the Urban Modeling Scientific Interest Group, with the holding of a summer school on Modeling and Evaluation for Urban Planning; scientific oversight of the Belgrand large infrastructure;  editorial management of the journal Flux; joint management of the Val d’Europe Tourism Cluster; joint management of crosscutting seminars for the LabEx on “urban design through the image”, “energy efficiency”, and “urban pedestrian mobility”.

Notable achievements in 2014: 3 Thesis prizes, the Prize for the best presentation at the Mobil.TUM Conference 2014,  and organization with Lab’urba and the Urban Futures LabEx of the 51st International Congress of the French Language Regional Science Association.

Director: Pierre Zembri
Oversight: École des Ponts ParisTech, Université Gustave Eiffel

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