Le transport en commun. Une problématique de la vie quotidienne

Urban transportation. Questions of ordinary triviality. The various research projects concerning urban transportation carried out by the LASSAU show that, for the users, the practices connected with transportation systems and facilities set in motion a complex process (the transportation sequence) and a ritualism that are the expression of a genuine social transportation experience linefeed to a way of life and a mode of production. On this basis, the sociological status of the transportation user becomes defined through what we have called the user's ability to get around, as demonstrated both by his presence (and not his absence) in the transportation system and by a characteristic kind of rationality. This competence in its turn enables us to consider the problem of transportation spaces (suburban stations and transfer stations have been the subject of our social investigations) on the basis not only of the user's viewpoint but also the explanation he provides of the way he uses the system. It is our view that an understanding of how the user develops his practices and how he pictures them to himself, how he «organizes» his transportation, will really enable us to describe these transportation spaces and therefore to elaborate an architectural model for the station. The actual consequences of our work, as well as their presentation - written, audiovisual, graphic - led us to, attempt the experience of communicating our results to transportation managers, considered on this occasion as the utilizers of sociological research work. This forced us, at the same time, to raise the question of the transportation users' «demand » and the legitimacy of that demand. We have tried to show in what respects the public transportation system constitutes a specific area of the relations between an organization and the population and to point out that, at least in this area of sociological research, various political lessons can be drawn. Although our experience failed, our research still contributed - or so we hope - to replace within the category of ordinary triviality the entire gamut of little decisions that, from one day to the next, give their essential substance to transportation practices

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