Julie Raffaillac, Logistics Project Manager at the Région Sud: “Logistics can no longer be overlooked”

“I have a degree in civil engineering from the École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’État (ENTPE),” she explains. “In my third year, I specialized in transportation and completed a DEA postgraduate degree in transportation economics at the University of Lyon, which is affiliated with ENTPE.” She wrote her thesis on urban freight transport as part of a national program led by the Transport Economics Laboratory (LAET, formerly LET) on the same subject. “It was a revelation,” she says. “It brings together a tremendous number of different topics and stakeholders. The field requires a 360-degree perspective, and it is far more exciting than passenger transportation!” During a fourth year of engineering school, Julie Raffaillac went to the United States, where she expanded her knowledge of transportation and logistics, though from a more theoretical perspective focused on flow optimization. In 2001, upon returning to France, she obtained her first position in the Studies and Strategy Department of the Île-de-France Regional Directorate for Infrastructure, where she worked on traffic modeling. “The goal was to develop long-term transportation planning by determining whether new infrastructure should be built and by testing the implementation of traffic-management scenarios in light of road congestion on the Île-de-France network and pollutant emissions,” she explains. At the same time, she continued to work on logistics, especially urban logistics, and contributed to developing a traffic model for regional heavy-goods vehicle flows, as well as to European projects related to new governance models in public transportation policy. “During this period, I also developed, with institutional partners, a logistics master plan for the Île-de-France region, involving consideration of warehouse planning and siting.”

What began as a discovery through coursework and study projects at engineering school—freight transport, and logistics more broadly—gradually became her professional calling as she gained experience. Its complexity, the many challenges it presents, its technical and organizational aspects, and the need to raise awareness and help both elected officials and the general public understand the issues make it a fascinating sector for her. “In logistics, when you pull on one thread, you actually end up with an entire ball of yarn,” Julie Raffaillac says. “The topics cascade, and solutions must be found collectively and across disciplines, because we are all responsible—including as citizen-consumers—for how logistics develops in a given area. For each type of logistics, territory, and stakeholder, compromises will be needed to find an appropriate solution.” The necessary cross-functional nature of the matters she handles is evident both externally, with local stakeholders and institutional partners, and internally, with colleagues in the various departments. “Everyone who works in logistics is passionate. We are one big family that keeps the faith, despite the complexity and difficulties we sometimes face,” she says enthusiastically. On a day-to-day basis, she must monitor projects financed by the Regional Council, manage the administrative side of funding, coordinate stakeholder networks, attend meetings on matters related to logistics, discuss how to, for example, reactivate a rail spur, take part in studies on industrial or urban logistics, and issue opinions on planning documents to determine whether they comply with the Regional Council’s master plans and strategies...

Julie Raffaillac finds it difficult to say what she likes most about her work today. “I like everything related to long-term planning and strategy,” she attempts to list. “Thinking through development plans and master plans is a captivating exercise...” But to give a more operational example, she cites her collaboration with Ademe, which began two years ago and involves joint calls for projects with the Regional Council aimed at funding low-carbon logistics experiments. “In 2023, we reviewed the applications of 18 candidates, with 14 winners. In 2024, we will assess 13.” What interests her is seeing the good ideas put forward, noting the project sponsors’ motivation, following the feedback, and considering, based on that initial feedback, which projects deserve to be explored further or replicated. “I could also mention another collaboration that interests me greatly at the moment, with the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, which is re-tendering its port sub-concessions and has issued a call for projects to market parcels located at the Arles industrial port site.” Julie Raffaillac also leads the regional logistics workshops alongside the French State, bringing together public and private stakeholders around common issues, with the aim of mobilizing and “raising awareness among local areas and economic players to spread the logistics message and bring sustainable solutions to the fore.” According to Julie Raffaillac, awareness of logistics issues is also making progress internally and, now, in many departments of the Regional Council, “logistics is no longer overlooked.”