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Baron, Nacima.

Figure 2.B. Gares & Connexion institutionnal and industrial transformation: progressive
automomy from SNCF, anticipating neutrality to any railway operator

2.2 The art of converting a crowd into a stream

Following the legal and institutional changes, the station operator now works with a series of
“customers”: partnerships with rail companies, financial and real estate entities, commercial
developers (B2B); station users (B2C); other public institutions (B2G). Flows represent a central
topic in the negotiations conducted with all three clienteles (Bertolini L, Spit T, 1998). The volume
and sociodemographic characteristics of these flows are essential parameters in the profitability of
B2B operations. Smooth flows within stations generate customer satisfaction, which is central to a
good B2C relationship. Social acceptance of changes to the station, the quality of its integration
into the urban environment, its role as an attractive presence in a neighbourhood, are key to
good B2G relations (Mulders-KusumoIs C, 2005). In social sciences, therefore, flow represents
a “boundary object” (Trompette, P. Vinck, D. 2009., Pucci P. 2011), in other words a point of
convergence between institutions with different or diverging interests, as well as an object that
forms the basis for the construction of a series of political and financial arrangements. In this
sense, flow is a construction, it is not just something that is quantified, but something that is
produced. Organising a human multitude into a flow consists in a series of actions that are both
material and immaterial. Materially, it entails transforming a formless crowd into a series of
pedestrian streams in order to achieve performance objectives (relating to movement, commerce
and security). In immaterial terms, it entails a series of operations to translate mathematical
scales into economic scales. Traffic streaming is both a method and an essential goal of the ongoing
changes to stations. It consists in constructing the optimum conditions for passenger navigation
around stations, which themselves are envisaged as assemblies of spaces and temporalities with
the capacity to fertilise – and maximise – the commercial potential.
The transformation of crowd into flows signifies a profound shift both in social representations
and in operational techniques. This change is not historical, yet railway companies try to
manage and control crowds and produce flows since a long time and had established a doctrine:
different arrival and departure halls, separate areas for freight and passenger traffic, waiting
areas and waiting rooms allocated to specific categories of passengers, shopping galleries, and
catering areas on the upper floor (Ribeill G., 1996). Nonetheless, the fear of the crowd is still
resurging as a threat, while flow appears to be the basis for the development of an economic

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