2023-08-31 18:50:59
A personalized and safe journey: this is what Valérie Pécresse, who chairs the Île-de-France region (IDF) and Île-de-France Mobilité (IDFM), wants. To do this, it announced the gradual and rapid expansion in Paris and the inner suburbs of the on-demand drop-off system for bus lines running after 10 p.m. and the Noctilien network, night buses, which already exist in the outer suburbs. since 2018.
The objective is to « be able to get off between two bus stops in order to bring the user closer to his destination “, we say to the RATP, the operator providing a large part of the operation of public transport in the Ile-de-France region and financed by IDFM.
Ask the driver directly
In concrete terms, users will be able to make their request directly to the driver, one stop in advance, from 10 p.m. until the end of the service, which is around one o’clock in the morning for regular lines. This will then apply to Noctilians for the rest of the night.
The bus driver will decide the exact drop-off point, the aim being to ensure everyone’s safety. The chosen stop must be well lit, with good visibility and a nearby pedestrian path. And the user can only descend from the front of the vehicle. The drivers have been trained in this new device.
A “necessary” measure
According to Christiane Dupart, vice-president of the National Federation of Transport User Associations (Fnaut), this measure is ” necessary “. The one who fights for women to reclaim public space “too thought out by and for men” has been defending this device for several years now.
She refers to a ” essential service to guarantee the right to mobility for all”. In her view, women will not be the only beneficiaries of this service: “For people with disabilities, particularly reduced mobility or visual impairment, this is a great step forward. The older ones, too, will certainly use it”.
France is late
Christiane Dupart emphasizes “France’s backwardness” on this plan: “with climate change, we will be led to use public transport more and more, so it must be safe and of high quality”.
This subject has fascinated her for years. In particular, she made a gender harassment study and sexual violence against women on public transport, in 2016. She recalls that the stop-on-demand initiative had already been launched in Toronto in 1991.
Questions about the implementation of shutdown on demand
In France, Nantes was a pioneer in 2015, and Bordeaux followed suit in 2017. Its implementationhad raised “some worries, relates Constance Chaignaud-Leprêtre, communications officer at Bordeaux Métropole. Bus drivers feared abuse from users, but this is far from the case. In 2022, there were only 575 on-demand services across the entire network, an average of 48 per month”.
Moreover, « lhe regularity and speed of journeys made by RATP drivers are taken into account in salaries. There is a requirement for profitability”, we say to the CFE-CGC union of the RATP group. However, with descent on demand, buses will stop more frequently and the journey may be slowed down.
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