Le service public de covoiturage: Vers quelles formes de gouvernance, de régulation et de modèles d'affaires ?

This paper deals with the varied governance frameworks established in France between local government and private mobility operators regarding short distance ridesharing services. It focuses on the private operator's business operation and public policies implemented by local governments in order to promote and regulate carpooling. It gives insight into why emergence of carpooling faces difficulty in suburban areas, and presents its current process of integration into local mobility public policies. The theoretical framework is based upon innovation's sociology and our data are issued from forties semi-structured interviews (section 1). First, we trace back the integration process of carpooling into local public policies in France (section 2). Then, we specify how and why a diversification of governance's forms of carpooling is being initiated through, on the one hand, the integration of ridesharing operators into the scope of public transport services (part 3), and on the other hand, through the growing involvement of historic public transport companies into this market (part 4). This paper shows that, depending on the type of actors involved, this transition augurs a potential strengthening of the place of carpooling in public mobility services, but can also result in a restraint of this mode in the margins of the mobility offer. To conclude, it shows to what extent these developments raise many challenges in terms of implementation and regulation, and also raises questions about strengthening the role of the automobile in the mobility system.