ROUVIER-PONS Armand

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Research projects

I am a geographer with a background in social science. My PhD dissertation focused on the segmentation trap in mobility planning—i.e. the challenge of categorizing user groups without falling into miserabilist or relativist representations of poverty, disability, and related vulnerabilities. Through case studies in several cities, this work critically examined how the qualitative understanding of contextual constraints could inform the statistical evaluation of accessibility. I am now pursuing further studies on the spatial dimension of population ageing and the ways in which it (re)produces housing inequalities.

My research also engages with territorial politics, notably by exploring how advances in participatory GIS can bridge perspectives among citizens and local authorities.

Publications and dissemination

Peer-reviewed papers

  • Pons A., Bréjat S., Finance O. and Conesa A. (under review). Mis/recognizing disabilities across transit and public spaces. Submitted to the Journal of Urban Mobility.
  • Conesa A., Dere I., Nihoul A., ..., Pons A. (2025). Routes to justice: bridging conceived and perceived public transport accessibility through user participation. Transportation.
  • Pons A., Finance O., and Conesa A. (2024). The fuel of discontent? Transport poverty risks and equity concerns in French urban peripheries. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 51(7), 1598-1613.

Working/Conference papers

  • Conesa A., Pons A., and Nihoul A. (2025). A mixed-methods study on inequalities in accessibility: Evidence from Brussels and Strasbourg. Transport Transitions: Advancing Sustainable and Inclusive Mobility. Springer Lecture Notes in Mobility.
  • Pons A. (2024). Participative approaches for accessibility planning: a review and applications. AESOP Annual Congress, Paris.
  • Pons et al. (2024). Mind the gap! How does unequal access to the city affect persons with reduced mobility? Poster and interactive atlas presented at the French quantitative geography meetings, Besançon.  Jury prize

Other presentations

  • Pons A. (2023). Une « périurbanisation de la pauvreté » ? Vulnérabilités énergétiques et mobilités quotidiennes autour de Lyon (1999-2019). 24èmes Rencontres internationales en urbanisme de l’APERAU, Université de Lausanne.
  • Conesa A., Pons A. et al. (2022). Mobilizing accessibility: combining modelling and participative approaches to assess public transport inclusiveness. NECTAR Conference, University of Toronto.
  • Pons A. (2022). Visualiser l’accessibilité : du potentiel aux vulnérabilités. 4èmes Rencontres Francophones Transports et Mobilités, Université du Luxembourg.

Additional experience

Teaching (≈350 hours)

  • Temporary Lecturer, University of Strasbourg: 
    • Advanced Cartography (45h) | Introduction to Western Social Thought (50h) | Guided Projects (10h).
      [undergraduate level]             
    • Geostatistics (12h) | DataViz with Python (12h) | Open Web Mapping (26h) | Transportation Planning (20h).
      [graduate level]
  • Assisted in a range of undergraduate courses: Economic Geography (56h) | Fundamentals of Population Science (18h) | Contemporary Geopolitics (40h) | Sociological Analysis (44h) | Topics in Human Geography (20h).

Consultancy

  • Benchmarked French commercial community land trusts for Urbanova.
  • Designed infographic panels for an urban mobility exhibition hosted by the Greater Strasbourg Authority.
  • Coordinating a multi-stakeholder observatory to foster dialogue on everyday mobilities (under development with Transdev). 

Education and training

2021-2025: Université de Strasbourg, PhD in Geography and Planning.

  • Doctoral Summer School on Climate Change and Cities, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
  • Visited the Center for Urban Science and Policy, TU Delft (2023).

2017-2021: ENS de Lyon, major in Geography.

  • Research Intern at the University of Edinburgh, VisHub Lab (2019).
  • Chinese Language Program, East China Normal University (Shanghai).

2015-2017: Khâgne B/L, Lycée Lakanal (Grand Paris).