For the first time in Europe, a shopping centre operator, Unibail-Rodamco, Europe’s leading listed commercial property company, partners with BlaBlaLines, the short-distance car sharing app of BlaBlaCar, for its visitors’ shopping trips. Unibail-Rodamco launched this partnership through UR Link, its open innovation platform.

What is this partnership?

The partnership starts with a Proof of Concept (POC) in two Unibail-Rodamco’s centres in the Paris region, Aéroville (Tremblay-en-France) and Rosny 2 (Rosny-sous-Bois). The partnership aims at optimising visitors’ and employees’ journeys from and towards these centres.

Since 13 April, within the car parks of these centres, easily-identifiable car sharing stations have been settled. Visitors and employees only have to connect to the app and select their journey to benefit from it. In order to encourage visitors to use this service more, a communication campaign “Unexpected Services” will be launched simultaneously. Furthermore, during transport strikes, all journeys are free for passengers. Finally, drivers will have the opportunity to benefit from a 15€ fuel card offered to all new BlaBlaLines drivers.

An easier and greener access to our centres

This partnership is aligned with Unibail-Rodamco’s ambition to facilitate the access to its centres, making it always easier and environmentally friendly. Mobility is indeed a priority topic for the Group, which operates high-traffic places (772 million visits per year). UR Link, Unibail-Rodamco’s open innovation platform, identified car sharing as an important solution on this topic, as 41% shopping centres visitors accessed the centres by car. Car sharing will also contribute to a reduction of the environmental impact of the Group, in line with its CSR strategy “Better Places 2030”, which aims at reducing by 50% the carbon footprint from transport by 2030.