2023-10-24 20:50:54
There will be no “major changeover” of the RATP bus network on January 1, 2025. The Senate validated this Tuesday an adjustment to the law, allowing the process of opening up to competition to be spread over two years, until ‘at the end of 2026. And not before December 31, 2024, the date initially set.
Without legislative change, the first batches of lines should have been allocated in June 2024, just a few weeks before the Paris Olympics… Enough to pose a strong risk of social unrest, due to the fears and uncertainties of the 19,000 employees of the transport networks. surface of the RATP. “A timetable which would have made a sort of big shift on January 1, 2025 was impossible, unrealistic and undesirable,” justified the Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune.
The upper assembly adopted by 243 votes to 100 the bill from the senator of Seine-Saint-Denis Vincent Capo-Canellas (UDI), supported by the government, to specify the legal framework of this competition, already launched by the The organizing authority for transport in the Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM).
In July, Valérie Pécresse (LR), the president of Île-de-France Mobilités, had already declared herself in favor of this spread over two years. A new agenda has since been proposed by IDFM, for the allocation of the 13 lots comprising 308 lines. The first four allocations will finally be voted on by IDFM, the day after the Olympic Games, in October 2024, for commissioning beginning in June 2025. The process will then be spread out for the other deposits until November 2026, and will end with bus centers located in intra-muros Paris.
RATP agents will not have to move
Depending on the results of the call for competition, RATP machinists will be transferred to another company (Keolis, Transdev etc.), or to the RATP subsidiary Cap IDF, when the latter wins the lot. In its text, the Senate modifies the conditions for transferring employees according to the criterion of bus centers and not bus lines, to avoid moving agents away from their workplace.
What to calm the concerns of the machinists? “It was inevitable anyway. How can we ensure service if half of the drivers live too far from the depot and leave the company? “, asks Cemil Kaygisiz, general secretary of the CGT RATP-Bus, who continues: “Everything is done to reassure us before the Olympics, but for us these are only announcement effects. When we ask for projections on what will change in remuneration before and after the change of operator, we have no answer and no written agreement. We do not even have access to Jean-Paul Bailly’s report and his recommendations. For what ? »
The mission of Jean-Paul Bailly, former CEO of RATP and La Poste, was commissioned by IDFM to clear up the gray areas on what will happen to bonuses, working time and retirement rights… In addition to the working conditions, unions are questioning the regulation of lines and coordination between everyone during disruptions on the rail network. “Competition is a dogma to which a few elected officials, fewer and fewer in number, cling,” believes Jean-Christophe Delprat, federal secretary of FO-RATP. We have been warning for months about the risks of disorganization caused by this process. We are calling for a moratorium. With inflation, operator margins are very low. This false opening to competition will lead to a deterioration of service, with fewer buses and fewer drivers hoping to make money. »
“A generally positive assessment” in the inner suburbs according to Valérie Pécresse
In the Senate, the three left-wing groups (socialist, environmentalist, communist) are also frankly opposed in substance to the opening of RATP buses to competition. “You want to step over the Olympic Games to avoid an industrial crash during this event,” accused socialist senator Simon Uzenat, denouncing a text “ordered at the request of Île-de-France Mobilités and its president.”
For her part, Valérie Pécresse wants to stay the course and cites the outer suburbs networks (Optile) as an example. “The results of the operations already carried out are generally positive for travelers,” she declared. before the senators on October 11. Certainly, as is the case with any change of public service delegate, there may have been periods of friction when the recipient of a lot was not the outgoing one. But, over time, we see a clear improvement, with more and better quality services. Thus, after one year of operation, punctuality increased by 2% on the Transdev lines, by 4% on the Keolis lines and by 5% on the lines operated by RATP Cap IDF. »
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