Risienne Mazengani, a Ph.D. student of the RITM co-supervised by Fabrice Le Guel (RITM) and Nicolas Soulié (IMT-B), will defend her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Well-being and transportation in the digital age“, on November 30, 2023.

The PhD defense will start at 3 PM in Room Gaudemet (Building D of the Faculty Jean Monnet).

Composition of the jury:

  • Eric Darmon, professeur (Université Paris-Nanterre) – Président
  • Nathalie Lazaric, directrice de recherche (Université de Nice – Côte d’Azur)
  • Virginie Lethiais, maîtresse de conférences (Institut Mines-Telecom Atlantique)
  • Amel Attour, maîtresse de conférences (Université de Nice – Côte d’Azur)
  • Anne Plunket, professeure (Université Paris-Saclay, RITM)
  • Alain Rallet, professeur émérite (Université Paris-Saclay, RITM)
PhD Thesis Abstract :

Transport experience has been transformed by digitalization. Development of connectivity (WI-FI, 4G/5G), as well as mobile terminals, like smartphones, allows an improvement of travel time perception. This thesis aims to explore in which ways the smartphone use affects travellers’ well-being during their travel time. This work is based on three empirical studies conducted between 2019 and 2022. The first chapter identifies the factors, both objective and subjective, affecting subjective well-being during travel time. The second chapter highlights the presence of complementary and substitutable activities and smartphone use during a trip, confirming the existence of multitasking. In the third chapter, the use of travel time and travellers’ well-being is studied in other transport modes (car, bicycle, walking). During a trip, travellers who are carrying out entertaining activities on smartphones see their well-being improve. In contrast, a passive activity or a passive use of the smartphone does not improve the traveller’s well-being because performed to compensate the feeling of time loss.