lines and calendar, we explain to you what will change

By 2026, the bus networks in Paris and the inner suburbs will be operated by private operators under public service delegation. A competitive process which has just begun with the allocation of three lots in the inner suburbs. Explanations.

This is a historic step in the long journey of RATP's opening to competition. This time, it involves the RATP bus lines in Paris and its inner suburbs. In total, 315 lines, nearly 4,800 buses for more than a billion trips (2018). Nearly 19,000 workers are affected.

To allocate these lines to new private companies, Ile-de-France Mobilité (IDFM) has divided its public transport network into twelve lots, twelve geographical perimeters.

This competitive process will firstly concern the networks furthest from Paris between September 2024 and mid-2025 and will concludeat the end of 2026 by a call for tenders for intramural lots in Paris left bank and Paris right bank.

This Tuesday, November 12, three of the twelve networks promised to be put into competition were submitted to the decision of the board of directors of Île-de-France Mobilités.

Are concerned:

►the lot “Marne et Brie“, which brings together lines currently operated by RATP and Transdev between Seine-Seine-Denis, Val-de-Marne and Seine-et-Marne.

►the “North Loops of the Seine” lot, which covers the municipalities of Levallois-Perret, Clichy-la-Garenne, Saint-Ouen.

► the “Bords de Marne” lotwhich serves Vincennes, or Fontenay-sous-Bois, among others.

Private operators, expected to take the reins of these lots are already known to several thousand users:

►Kéolis would get for seven years the “Marne et Brie” lot isit is Company, 70% owned by the SNCF and 30% by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

►Cape Île-de-France, a subsidiary wholly owned by RATP created six years ago, should operate the “North loops of the Seine” and “Bords de Marne”.

The new management of these networks must begin from August 2025. 2,800 agents are concerned.

(Point the mouse over the departments)

In the greater Paris suburbs, the liberalization of public transport managed by the RATP began three years ago in the departments of Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Essonne and Val-d'Oise. This process must be completed this year and concerns a sector divided into 36 lots. Public service delegation (DSP) contracts have been awarded to operators such as Transdev, Keolis, Lacroix-Savac and RATP Cap Ile-de-France.

In Seine-et-Marne, the Marne-la-Vallée bus network operated today by Transdev Marne-la-Vallée was the first lot put into competition.

Another example, at the beginning of 2024, in Val-d'Oise and Yvelines, the Lacroix-Savac group, under the Francilité brand, will provide the lines of Cergy-Pontoise Confluence bus network. This change of operator does not happen without problems in the delegated companies.

Opening up to competition will not only affect bus networks. This competition concerns all Transilien, RER and Paris metro lines. A process which extends over 20 years until 2040. The metro and RER A and B will be the last networks affected by this competition.

At the origin of the liberalization of public transport in Île-de-France, a European directive which gradually imposes competition for public transport services in all member states of the European Union. The ORTF law of December 8, 2009, on the organization and regulation of rail transport, frames this opening to competition for the Ile-de-France networks.

According to IDFM, this competition will ultimately make it possible to offer a better service across the entire transport network. The transport authority explains that “this competition between the Île-de-France transport network will allow Île-de-France Mobilités to define precise objectives adapted to each network and to be able to evaluate the operators” which operate networks for a period which is no longer indeterminate.

The opposition to the Île-de-France Regional Council condemned these attributions. “We are starting the sale of the historic RATP network, set up at the Liberation”regretted Céline Malisé, president of the group La Gauche Communiste, Ecologist et Citoyenne.

Unions such as Solidaires-RATP, Sud-Rail Fédération and the Fédération Sud-Solidaires Urbains et interurbains organized a rally in front of IDFM headquarters this Tuesday. They are protesting against what they call “cutting out of public service. These employees fear a deterioration in their working conditions and a drop in the quality of the transport offer.