Public transport: the Dordogne among the most underserved in France according to UFC Que Choisir

The UFC Que Choisir published this Tuesday, November 26, a detailed investigation into access to public transport in France. She reveals that in Dordogne, 62% of residents do not have a public transport stop less than ten minutes from their home. Which represents 243,888 people. Statistics which place Périgord in fourth position in the national ranking of the least well served departments, behind Gers, Lot and Lozère. “To achieve this result, we brought together all the transport stops that exist, all the locations, and we compared them with the location of the population in the department” explains Lucile Buisson, environment, energy and transport project manager at UFC Que Choisir.

An observation that does not surprise Thierry, who moved to Tourtoirac in May, a town of 600 inhabitants located 35 km east of Périgueux. “There’s not much,” explains this professional cook who arrives from the Var. “It’s true that it’s complicated”he admits. “I have a car, but I pity people who don't have a means of transportation. They need it for work, to go shopping, for everything. If someone doesn't have a car , there are no shuttles, there are no buses, there is no help for elderly people, who do not have transport or who cannot drive for a health reasons, there is nothing that is done.” For Joëlle, this is even one of the reasons why young people no longer want to settle in the countryside. “Young people are looking for ease”she testifies. “Petrol is very expensive, so many cannot, if they earn a minimum wage, and they have to spend more than €400 or €500 on petrol in the month, what do they have left? But all things considered, They prefer to find a small rental in the city and the houses in the countryside close one after the other. Why? Because of the lack of amenities, quite simply!” An obligation to use a car which can create insecurity, explains Lucile Buisson who carried out the survey. “Secours catholique worked on these consequences”she explains. “The car is expensive, around €3,000 per year for a household and not having access to an alternative to the car – public transport is the main alternative – this means, in your budget, significant expenses linked to the daily mobility.

We need to invest massively in public transport

In conclusion, the consumer defense association recommends “a supply shock” “We must invest massively in public transport and change the way in which public transport is financed, since today this financing is dependent on a tax called the mobility payment that companies owe to communities explains Lucile Buisson, who carried out this survey. Except that depending on where the businesses are located, rural or peri-urban communities have little access to this tax, which means that they have difficulty offering public transport services.
For the project manager, there are different possibilities for strengthen this financing. “It is possible that the State contributes more to financing since today, in the end, it is the communities and the mobility payment which mainly finance public transport and very little the State. It is also possible that the Region organizes an equalization between the different communities in the same territory to allow communities which have more mobility payments to transfer the fruit of this tax to smaller communities which are more in difficulty.