The project
How will territories organize themselves under energy and environmental constraints?
The core of the MISTERE project is the optimization of mobility networks and urban components under energy constraints, for the 2030, 2040 and 2050 horizons.
Context and challenges
Most major French cities have committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, but are struggling to translate this goal into a credible decarbonation strategy backed by robust assessments of the socio-economic dimensions of key measures. Achieving net-zero emissions requires not only an unprecedented intensification of mobility policies, but also a systemic approach coordinating actions across sectors, spatial scales and timetables, up to 2050 and beyond.
The tools currently used by local authorities and consultancies share common limitations: they model trends and policy impacts sector by sector, based on national statistical ratios and a linear view of policy deployment and urban change. They struggle to capture the intersectoral dynamics specific to each territory, or to account for the new situations territories may face in the coming years.
MISTERE addresses this gap by relying on three complementary levers — mobility policies, energy policies and land-use planning — and on the development of transport and urban system models and simulations that capture realistic features: population heterogeneity, the existing geographical structure of the city, and the plurality of transport modes and energy alternatives.
Three complementary levers
Combining them enables a comprehensive comparison of the options available to local authorities, taking environmental, energy and equity constraints into account.
Mobility lever
Pricing of public transport, parking and roads; service supply (frequency, accessibility); development of active modes and their integration with public transport.
Energy lever
Transition to electric vehicles and other low-emission alternatives, standards defining accessible areas by vehicle class (low emission zones), the scheduled phase-out of combustion-engine vehicles.
Land-use planning lever
Upgrading existing infrastructure to accommodate pedestrian and active-mode flows, accounting for household and business location choices, and the rise of teleworking.
Three scientific objectives
- 01
Develop state-of-the-art methods and models
Based on a critical review of existing theories and models, and on discussions between academic partners, experts and local authorities, the project evaluates existing models and produces a comprehensive methodology for building transport simulations tailored to French cities and territories.
- 02
Implement, test and evaluate the approach
Methods and models are tested on each study area against realistic policy choices. A set of KPIs measures short-term effects and compares scenarios, with weightings adjusted to each territory's priorities.
- 03
Build a durable collaboration
MISTERE partners are engaged in regional, national and international networks on sustainable cities and transport decarbonation, with the ambition to build a recognized network bridging academic research, policymakers and French and international initiatives.
Five KPI families
A shared evaluation framework, weighted according to each territory's own priorities.
Environment & quality of life
GHG emissions, fine particulates, share of active modes, noise pollution, accessibility to public transport and to urban amenities.
Energy
Energy consumption, share of renewable energy.
Financial costs
Fixed costs (infrastructure, equipment), operating costs, collected revenues (fares, parking, road pricing, other taxes).
Efficiency & service quality
Public transport supply, wait times, congestion level, in-vehicle travel times.
Technology & innovation
Information services, smart technologies, usage of shared active modes, on-demand transport, AI-based solutions.
MISTERE within PEPR MobiDEC
MISTERE is complementary to the FORBAC project within PEPR MobiDEC. Both projects focus on decision-support tools, but MISTERE mainly targets the modeling of interactions between transport and land use (LUTI models) at local scales — urban, suburban and rural — by linking energy, mobility and land-use planning levers. In the Grenoble area for instance, MISTERE follows on from work carried out under FORBAC on household motorization, coupling it with residential location choices and the sizing of charging infrastructure.
Four pilot territories
Integrated models are developed and tested in close collaboration with partner local authorities, building on transport and land-use models already developed locally.