Inspired by citizens, informed by science

The Mobile Lives Forum is a French association specializing in mobility which seeks to respond to the aspirations of citizens while simultaneously transitioning away from a carbon-intensive mobility system. Since 2011, it has pioneered innovative approaches to developing and implementing proposals on major mobility challenges through research, surveys, and public debates. In doing so, the Forum contributes to both ecological and social transition. Functioning as a non-profit organization under France’s 1901 law and funded by the SNCF, its team is made up of around ten highly optimistic professionals. This unique model has earned the Forum significant influence and solid scientific credibility both in France and internationally.

Understanding the Mobility System

The Mobile Lives Forum funds and oversees research conducted by academics, focusing on the role of travel in current and potential future lifestyles, and mobility policies.

It disseminates and promotes its findings among policymakers and mobility researchers through a variety of channels, including publications (briefings, reports, books, and its website) and events (conferences, symposiums, exhibitions, etc.).

Empowering Citizens / Enabling citizens to set the agenda

The Forum conducts surveys and organizes citizen assemblies representing diverse communities and regions to understand their aspirations, which are then placed at the heart of future mobility policy discussions.

Changing the Mobility System

Bolstered by its scientific and public credibility, the Mobile Lives Forum develops concrete, systemic political proposals and presents them to policy makers, with a view to transform the mobility system.

Why SNCF has created the Mobile Lives Forum?

“We move a lot, often and far. Travel and movement are at the core of

our beings; they enable and condition the exercise of all our activities -work, education and vacations - not to mention our emotional and social lives. They seem natural to us. A given. Travel has always benefitted from technological progress; thus have the train, car and plane gradually yet overwhelmingly increased our potential for movement, allowing us to transform our lives and the spaces in which we live. The flipside is that the frequency of travel and conditions in which we do so are too often “endured” and can endanger the very structure and stability we seek for our lives.

Today there is little doubt that we have entered a renaissance in terms of modes of transportation and the lifestyles that go with them. On the one hand, the drawbacks: environmental hazards and energy crises call for innovative policies and changes in the way we live in order to better manage scarcity. On the other, the opportunities: the emergence and continued development of new information and communications technologies most notably have altered the conditions of transportation use, allowed new players to emerge and given new authority to users. Our travel options will also undoubtedly be greatly affected, and our future plans will have to be adapted accordingly. Planning and development policies and localization strategies for companies will need revisiting.

These changes interest the international mobility group that is SNCF today, particularly in view of the services it offers its customers and insomuch as it contributes to the development of the regions it serves. In 2011, SNCF created an institute where these changes and their social, economic, environmental and political impact are studied and debated by researchers, artists, intellectuals and professionals – freely and without taboos. This independent institute is henceforth known as the Mobile Lives Forum.”

Guillaume Pepy
SNCF Former President

Board of Directors of the Mobile Lives Forum

Five members of the SNCF group form the board of directors of the Mobile Lives Forum

Jean-Christophe Combe, Director of Marketing, Innovation, Sustainable Development and Engagement within the Keolis group.

Tanguy Cotte-Martinon, General Secretary of SNCF Voyageurs.

Antoine de Rocquigny, Director of Real Estate for the SNCF Group.

Muriel Signouret, CSR Director of the SNCF group.

Eric Steil, Marketing and Development Director within the TER department of the SNCF.

Management of the Mobile Lives Forum

Antoine de Rocquigny , Chair of the Mobile Lives Forum.

A graduate of HEC, Sciences Po Paris, and a former student of ENA, Antoine de Rocquigny began his career in 1999 at the Budget Department of the French Ministry of Finance. In 2003, he joined the SNCF as the TER Strategy Manager and subsequently held several key positions within the company, including Deputy Director of TER Nord-Pas de Calais, Director of the Picardie Region, and Chief of Staff to the President. After serving as Deputy Chief of Staff for the Budget Minister, he returned to the SNCF in 2013, becoming Director of Operations and Customer Service for the Travel division, then Director of Finance, Strategy, and Legal Affairs. Later, he served as Secretary General of SNCF Voyageurs and is currently Director of Real Estate for the SNCF group.

Sylvie Landriève , Director of the Mobile Lives Forum.

Since its inception in 2011, Sylvie Landriève has been responsible for overseeing, facilitating, and coordinating the Forum’s activities. Prior to this, she directed and managed real estate and urban development projects in both the private and public sectors (BNP Real Estate, SNCF). With a background in the humanities (Sorbonne and Sciences Po Paris) and management research (Mines ParisTech, Paris Nanterre, and ESCP), much of her work focuses on public policy evaluation and promoting citizen participation in this. Her publications include L’Immobilier. Une passion française (Demopolis, 2016), Pour en finir avec la vitesse (L’Aube, 2021), and the op-ed “The ‘car system,’ a problematic Western model that has colonized public space,” published in Le Monde in 2024. Contact

Scientific direction of the Mobile Lives Forum

Vincent Kaufmann , Scientific Director of the Mobile Lives Forum.

Vincent Kaufmann is responsible for ensuring the scientific relevance of the Forum’s strategy and new projects. A Swiss sociologist, he is a pioneer in mobility research and created the concept of motility. He is the Director of the Urban Sociology Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (LaSUR - EPFL) and a Professor of Sociology and Mobility Analysis. His publications include Tranches de vie mobile (Loco, 2014), Pour en finir avec la vitesse (L’Aube, 2021), and Les nouvelles proximités (FYP, 2024). Find all of his work here.

Mobile Lives Forum Team

Matthieu Bloch oversees research projects and the development and implementation of sustainable and desirable mobility policies. He holds a Master’s degree in Urban Studies and Regional Planning from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. For five years, he managed several public space projects at EPT Plaine Commune, focusing on promoting alternative modes of transport to cars. Contact

Adrien Bonnet manages research projects and surveys at the Mobile Lives Forum. He holds a Master’s degree in Networks Industry and the Digital Economy from Paris Dauphine-PSL University. Contact

Fiona Davoine is graduated from Sciences Po Lille with a Master’s degree in International Relations, specializing in NGO advocacy and communications. After working at the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, she joined the Mobile Lives Forum as its Communications Officer. Contact

Tom Dubois is an urban planner specializing in mobility issues. As the spokesperson for the Mobile Lives Forum, he is responsible for promoting research, overseeing communications and public relations, and implementing proposals. He holds a Master’s degree in Urbanism and Urban Planning from the Paris School of Urban Planning and from the École des Ponts ParisTech. He also studied communications at Sciences Po Paris. He is the co-author of Pour en finir avec la vitesse (L’Aube, 2021). Contact

Thomas Evariste holds Master’s degrees in History and Publishing from the University of Caen-Normandie. He previously worked as a lecturer on national monuments at Mont Saint-Michel Abbey and at the Presses Universitaires de France before joining the Mobile Lives Forum as its Editorial Manager. Contact

Lina Fornara-Danjou serves as the Executive and Management Assistant of the Mobile Lives Forum. Contact

Agathe Lefoulon manages the Forum’s artistic projects — in particular its photography projects — as well as overseeing the Forum’s participatory democracy initiative, the Citizen Forum. She also conducts research in the humanities and social sciences and organizes events. She holds a Master’s degree combining professional and research tracks in Urban Planning and Development, from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Contact

Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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Movement

Movement is the crossing of space by people, objects, capital, ideas and other information. It is either oriented, and therefore occurs between an origin and one or more destinations, or it is more akin to the idea of simply wandering, with no real origin or destination.

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Motility

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