Nicolas Wagner

The economics of motorway concessions in France

In my current position, I have led several analyses on motorway concessions, focusing on the relevance of the French model, its areas for improvement, and its profitability.

Some of our findings are presented in the two reports published in 2020 (download here) and 2023 (download here).

The Decarbonising Transport initiative

The Decarbonising Transport initiative promotes carbon-neutral mobility to help stop climate change. It provides decision makers with tools to select CO2 mitigation measures that deliver on their climate commitments. At the OECD, I was involved in several projects within the decarbonising Transport initiative. For example:

• The Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth report
• A project on how to decarbonise the personal vehicle fleet
• An input paper for the World Bank report Beyond the Gap : How Countries Can Afford the Infrastructure They Need while Protecting the Planet

Accessibility measurements (2017-2018)

Spatial accessibility relates to how, and how well, people access to jobs and services. Urban accessibility has become an increasingly important focus of transport planning. I built the ITF urban accessibility platform, a set of databases and computational scripts used to produce accessibility measurements for all cities of the world.

National low carbon strategy (2014 - 2016)

I was a key member of the team in charge of the 2015–2020 National Low-Carbon Strategy (NLCS). Among other things, I worked actively on the transport scenario and conducted a long-term demand forecast. The results are currently still used as a reference for transport policy appraisal by the ministry in charge of transport.

I also supervised an appraisal of the macroeconomic effects of the NLCS using a CGE model.

Socio-economic assessments of transport policies (2013 - 2016)

While working in the central administration of the ministry in charge of transport, I conducted several socio-economic assessments. In particular:

• On "Trains d'équilibre du territoire" (available on request)
• On policies supporting cycling
• On long distance coaches

I also served on the scientific committee for the national guidelines on the socio-economic appraisal of transport investments.

Residential economy (2010-2013)

Based on the theoretical framework developed by Laurent Davezies, this study deals with the consequences of an increase in transport costs for the residential economy in South East France. We produced 4 publications:

• Mobility patterns in South East France
• Access to services in South East France
• Territorial vulnerability in South East France
• Zoom on a specific area

Additionally, I authored a methodological report that was used to replicate the study in four other parts of France.

Assessing transport policies in the Vallée du Rhône (2011 - 2012)

In 2006, a national debate on widening the heavily congested highways of the Vallée du Rhône took place. It resulted in the creation of an observatory of the transport activities. I was in charge of defining the observatory and producing its first assessment report, covering the 2006 to 2012 period. In this context, I led a team of four engineers and a designer.

Download summary report

Local authority assistance for sustainable mobility plans (2010 - 2013)

I conducted several assignments for local authorities, usually focused on specific technical topics within larger planning projects. For instance, I provided technical assistance for:

• the development of the multimodal transport model for the Geneva urban area (as part of a french-swiss cooperation).
• the sustainable mobility plan for the Grésivaudan area near Grenoble.

I also contributed to a methodological note on the appraisal of urban mobility plans : "L'évaluation des PDU : des convergences d'approches pour une réalité complexe"

Large scale transport surveys (2010 - 2013)

While working at CETE de Lyon (now Cerema), I led several large-scale transport surveys. In particular, I conducted a survey of more than 10,000 households for the Rhône-Alpes region. I was also responsible for the main statistical components, including survey design and reweighting using calibration on margins.

Development of a traffic microsimulator for Renault (2004 - 2005)

Renault has long developed driving simulators for vehicle development and research activities. I spent one year in Renault’s driving simulator and virtual reality department, developing the traffic simulation module of SCANeR© II, the in-house driving simulator tool. I investigated state-of-the-art modeling techniques, in particular Bayesian networks approaches, and implemented them in the software.