Our Rural mobility stations, to promote shared options in rural areas
How can we encourage people to use active, shared mobility solutions in rural communities? That’s one of the challenges addressed by Rural mobility stations, an experiment launched by SNCF Tech4Mobility which was awarded a special prize for local innovation at the 2024 exhibition for mayors and local authorities. The team in charge explains to us this project.
Rural mobility stations were conceived by SNCF’s innovation accelerator Tech4Mobility as a way to get rural communities interested in shared and active transport solutions. Carving out a more visible space is key. Two experiments are now underway in western Brittany, both aimed at encouraging local residents to shift from private cars to bicycles, car sharing and other mobilities. Laurent Eisenman, head of SNCF Tech4Mobility’s New Uses and Services for Rural Communities programme, joins Caroline Guérin, project lead for the department’s Innovation by Design initiative, to explain how these innovative solutions—which were awarded a special prize in the « low-carbon mobility » category at the 2024 exhibition for mayors and local authorities —came about.
How did the Rural mobility stations project get started?
Laurent Eisenman: While we were rolling out other transport-on-demand initiatives—Ma Course SNCF1 and Les Pros-voitureurs2—we also had a special programme promoting new services to rural communities. And we could see that non-citydwellers were far less inclined to shift from private cars to more affordable, more shared and more collective modes of transport. To make these new forms of mobility more appealing, we took a fresh look at street furniture. In cities, urban furniture draws residents’ attention to scooters and car sharing, not to mention buses and metros. But in rural areas, street furniture is either non-existent or a throwback to the 1970s—think concrete bollards, or wooden and plexiglass bus shelters for school children.
So there was nothing alerting rural communities to these new forms of mobility?
Laurent Eisenman: Exactly. So we set out to invent a new rural equivalent—high-visibility street furniture that would spotlight these new solutions for local communities. A simple transposition—copying and pasting existing options from city to country—wouldn’t work because the social codes are different. But when people pass by street furniture designed especially for them every day, they notice and get used to new transport options. For example, bikes for shared use—cargo and longtail bikes, and bike-buses for school runs. Or shared electric vehicles that don’t require a driver’s license. Our gut feeling led us turn to the cognitive and behavioural sciences to create what are called cognitive cues3—visual signs that make mobility a realistic option in a given environment. We’re currently experimenting with these in Guimiliau and Plouzévédé, two towns in western Brittany.
Why those towns?
Laurent Eisenman: We headed out into the field with AREP4, whose teams worked with us on furniture design. We were looking for around 15 sites and shortlisted candidates using a grid that assessed issues like safety, space requirements, proximity to popular local destinations, and so on.
How did you tackle furniture design?
Caroline Guérin: Our aim, working with AREP Design, was to create new street furniture that had a distinct rural feel and identity. That fit in with how the types of mobility we had in mind would be used. We worked on “affordance”, a design concept in which the properties of an object make it user-friendly. When people see it, they intuitively know how to use it. Our flagpoles have a “destination scroll” making it obvious that this is the spot for hitchhiking and car sharing. Shelters serve a variety of mobility modes, and there are bike racks, custom-made secure shelters, bike pump and repair stations—in short, all of the services and options available at these redesigned pieces of street furniture.
How do your designs differ from urban furniture?
Caroline Guérin: To make our markers both recognizable and attractive, we updated existing rural codes and created a new identity. Example: our flagpole harkens back to May Poles that people once decorated with bouquets or pennants. And we use materials that evoke farming and agriculture—galvanized steel, but also wood, in reference to rural communities’ long tradition of woodworking. Which means that markers can be customized for each region.
For example?
Caroline Guérin: The shelter in Guimiliau houses a range of services—above and beyond those that we offer. And it’s a hybrid creation that combines industry and craft: we teamed up with a local wickerwork specialist who wove materials onto a metal frame for the side panels to a comfortable waiting area.
How does the hitchhiking and car-sharing pole work?
Caroline Guérin: We were keen to develop low-tech solutions here—furniture that’s both low-maintenance and sustainable. For hitchhiking stops, a “destination scroll” replaces the hitchhiker’s traditional hand-drawn sign. If someone is waiting for a ride, they push a button that activates a signal light. By designating an official ride-share spot, this system encourages safe hitchhiking. In Plouzévédé, the pole even has its own power source—solar panels on the roof. We’ve also brought in digital technology to create user-friendly ways of letting people know what options are available.
How does this work?
Caroline Guérin: It starts with maps. Many people in rural areas are not all that familiar with public transport, since most rely on private cars. We need to let potential users know what’s out there—how they can get around their region without having to look up the timetables for each operator, which are sometimes hard to decipher, and without consulting endless maps.
Our solution: collect this information and share it through local government, including towns themselves, so that people can get an overview of all the shared and collective mobility options available throughout their region. In each community, we’ve also flagged popular destinations for daily life, from the town hall and sport facilities to the bakery, all of which lie within a small radius of where street furniture is erected. This reminds people that you don’t need a car to get around. We focus on explaining exactly how it all works—how to get from point A to point B, how long it will take on foot, by bicycle, by electric bike, and so on.
Our aim is to show that you don’t need a car for short, everyday trips.
So what alternative mobility solutions are on offer?
Caroline Guérin: Our aim was to offer local residents new forms of mobility as an alternative to private cars. First, there’s a stock of “local bikes” donated by residents who no longer use them. We repair these and put them back into circulation free of charge, for anyone who needs one. But there are also longtails and cargo bikes for heavy loads, and even a bike-bus for up to eight children. That’s ideal for school transport or group outings. Plus electric mini-vehicles that don’t require a driver’s license. And there’s car-sharing and hitchhiking. Users can find the solution that suits them best.
What about passenger information?
Caroline Guérin: Rural mobility stations bring all mobility services together in one place. Our focus is accessibility, suggesting ways to use all these solutions, setting out the distances each one can cover, explaining how much they cost, and so on. All of this information is displayed on panels near the furniture, but also in town halls which help spread the word.
So it’s a multi-pronged initiative?
Caroline Guérin: Yes. We’re reaching out to all kinds of people, particularly those who need to get around but can’t—seniors, for example, or young people who don’t have a driver’s license. These “housebound” groups don’t always have the financial or physical means they need to get out and about. We want to include them as much as possible, and we offer an app5 and a website6 where residents can reserve a bike or mini-car. And for potential users who are less at ease with digital technology, our customer service department is happy to lend a hand.
What role do the two host towns play?
Laurent Eisenman: We began by holding workshops with local officials, residents, associations and businesses to learn about local mobility habits and brainstorm together on what an ideal Rural mobility stations site would look like. It was collaborative, a co-build process to encourage local communities to buy into our solution. The network of local authorities helps relay our messages out into the community. That’s no small challenge, so we rely heavily on town halls and other networks. Our street furniture is installed on public land, which meant signing agreements with the authorities to occupy those sites. That alone has led to closer ties with both towns than you might have if you focused solely on delivering transport-on-demand or a bike service.
Any initial feedback from residents?
Laurent Eisenman: They love it! Events organized to celebrate the launch played a key role: we brought in residents, helped them set up their online accounts and test our custom bikes and cars, and trained local teams—all of which has paid off. But we can’t stop here; we’ve got to keep promoting the Rural mobility stations. For now, electric cars that don’t require a driver’s licence have been the most popular option, but you can’t change longstanding habits overnight.
What’s next?
Laurent Eisenman: Compiling quantitative and qualitative data will help us better understand where people go with these transport options, and why they use them. So we’ll be able to see what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what’s been fine-tuned along the way—information that we’ll include in a feedback report. And from there we’ll write up recommendations for taking things to the next level. A doctoral student in behavioural psychology has made our experiment the subject of her thesis, analyzing how rural street furniture has changed residents’ behaviour in the two towns. When the experiment is over, furniture will remain in place and will drive academic research that will ultimately move our work at SNCF forward.
How do Rural mobility stations fit into SNCF’s broader strategy?
Laurent Eisenman: Our work with Rural mobility stations will help nurture and decompartmentalize the rail system. Once the new TGV M boosts capacity, and once fare systems are more affordable, and once we’re able to increase train traffic on our network thanks to the efforts of our DTIPG teams, SNCF Voyageurs and SNCF Réseau, we’ll be looking to pull more passengers in. And we’ll do that by opening rail travel up to new user profiles. That means expanding rural mobility to make it easier to get to stations and easier to get tickets. When we trialled Ma Course SNCF, market research showed that one-quarter of all users would never have gone to their local station had the service not existed. Rural mobility stations may be focused on everyday mobility, but today statistics tell us that 40% of people use their own private car to commute to a job less than 1 km away. That rises to 60% for commutes under 5km. With MAM, we’re tackling that reflex head-on to make change happen.