“On the evening of the 31st, are you coming back with us? » This year again, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM, the regional transport organizing authority) is launching this invitation to night owls who will celebrate New Year's Eve in the capital by offering them the opportunity to return home by public transport rather than by car… regardless of the late evening time.
To help users get through the new year without taking risks on the road, the organization asked operators (RATP and Transilien SNCF) to run metros, RERs or trains continuously throughout the night New Year's Eve. The lines concerned will be accessible free of charge to all, without a transport ticket, from Tuesday December 31 from 5 p.m. until Wednesday January 1 at noon.
Only the largest stations will be served
As in 2023, six metro lines have been integrated into the New Year system. The three automatic lines of the network (line 1 between Château-de-Vincennes and La Défense, line 4 from Porte-de-Clignancourt to Bagneux and line 14, extended last June to Saint-Denis in the north and Orly airport in the south) constitute its backbone. But non-automatic lines 2, 6 and 9 will also be used all night.
Not sure, however, that your favorite station on one of these lines will be served during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. After the normal end of service time (around 1:30 a.m. on Saturdays and the eve of public holidays), the metros concerned will only operate in partial service. This means that the trains will not stop at all stations. Only the largest ones or those which connect with other lines will be exceptionally open at night. Only the emblematic line 14 will run continuously on almost its entire new route (with the exception of Orly airport station, which is not served at night).
A TELECHARGER. Lines in circulation, and stations open
Be careful, however, not to find closed doors in different stations… even before the festivities begin. In addition to exceptional openings at night, the special transport system provides for temporary closures, for security reasons, in the Champs-Élysées sector, traditionally invaded by crowds.
Access to Charles-de-Gaulle-Étoile station (where metro lines 1, 2 and 6 as well as the RER A intersect) will be closed to the public from 3 p.m. on December 31 and will not reopen until 2 a.m. in the morning the next day. Trains will continue to run there but without stopping at the station. The Tuileries, Concorde, Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau, Franklin-D.-Roosevelt, George-V and Argentine stations, on line 1, and the Passy station, on line 6, will be subject to the same closing and reopening times . Ternes station (line 2) will be closed just after midnight and will also reopen at 2 a.m.
After 2 hours, priority in the Paris-suburb direction
Same logic of partial night service to be expected on RER A, B, C, D and E, which will all run for New Year's Eve… but not necessarily in their entirety. On lines A and B, all stations will be served all night and in both directions of traffic on their central section (from Nanterre-Préfecture to Vincennes for RER A and between Aulnay-sous-Bois and Bourg-la-Reine for RER B). The RER E will be open all night, but only on its “historic” part, from the Gare de l’Est towards the terminuses of Chelles-Gournay and Tournan (Seine-et-Marne), and not on the extension between Saint-Lazare and Nanterre-la-Folie, put into service in 2024. All stations will be served in the Paris-suburb direction after 2 hours.
However, night service will be more reduced on lines C and D, where trains will only run in the Paris-suburb direction after the normal end of service time, in the omnibus version (serving all stations) but not on their entire route. The RER C north will thus terminate at Ermont-Eaubonne while the Corbeil-Malesherbes branch of the RER D will not be served.
Outside the capital, you will have to be patient between two trains
In addition to these RER, party-goers who wish to return to the greater suburbs will be able to take advantage of the exceptional nighttime opening of the Transilien lines H, J, L, N, P and R, all of which stations will be served, but only in the direction exit from the capital. Like last year, the Aulnay-Bondy branch of the T4 tram will also remain active all night.
However, check the night train times on navigation applications before leaving. A train is planned every eighteen minutes on the central section of RER A and B (the best served), but only one passage per half hour for lines C and D in Paris and barely one train per hour in beyond. And the further we move away from the capital, the more the passage intervals will lengthen. Residents of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines wishing to return by train will only be able to count on one train per hour on line N and only two trains overnight on RER C.
