Keolis challenges RATP and wins 42 bus lines at the gates of Paris

© Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas. /AFP

– This Tuesday, the board of directors of Ile-de-France Mobilités, the organizing authority for public transport in the Ile-de-France region, has just ratified the winning by Keolis of a batch of six bus depots and their 42 attached lines in Petite Couronne (Territory of Marne and Brie)

Lyon friends, these are the last days of Keolis on board your TCL metros. From January 1, 2025, RATP will operate heavy modes (1,600 agents) in the Lyon metropolitan area in place of Keolis. The Parisian authority, which is seeking to decentralize from its historic market, in fact won the competition last spring against the historic operator of all public transport in the capital of Gaul. A contract worth 2 billion euros over 10 years.

But Keolis wasted no time in starting the counterattack. And it’s in the Paris region that it’s happening, on the grounds of… Jean Castex’s RATP. This Tuesday, the board of directors of Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the organizing authority for public transport in the Ile-de-France region, has just approved the gain by Keolis of a batch of six bus depots and their 42 attached lines (206, 207, 209, 211, 213, 310, 312, 321, 421…) in Petite Couronne (Territoire de Marne et Brie). This represents, according to our information, no less than 37 million trips each year in these 33 communes of Ile de France (Chelles, Noisy-le-Grand, Pontaux-Combault, etc.).

A market worth 900 million euros over 8 years

And it's a small event because it marks the opening to competition of the bus market near Paris and therefore the end of the RATP monopoly. Although the Régie knew that it could not keep everything, it was still awarded two of the three lots put into competition this Tuesday (Boucles Nord de Seine and Bords de Marne), i.e. 48 bus lines in all, therefore leaving Keolis with a market worth 900 million euros over 8 years.

Operation in the Petite Couronne by the new operator will begin in November 2025, but there is no time to lose in preparing the transfer of the rolling stock, as well as the RATP drivers who will therefore discover a new home. “ Île-de-France Mobilités has already decided to entrust Keolis with the operation of 3 of the 4 lines of the future Grand Paris Express metro (lines 16, 17 and 18). We will soon operate 90 km of automatic metro lines in Île-de-France. And we have positioned ourselves on this bus contract (called DSP 9, Editor’s note) because our ambition is to breathe new life into Paris' bus networks and Petite Couronne, which have gradually lost their attractiveness due in particular to a declining commercial speed”. analyse Youenn DupuisDeputy Managing Director of Keolis, in charge of Île-de-France.

To do this, Keolis is already on the ground inspecting traffic lights, roads and crossings to provide new solutions to make its future buses run more quickly. Traveler information will also see improvements because Keolis wants to install small terminals at bus stops which operate with mini batteries that consume little energy. It will thus be possible to see the real-time position of the arriving bus.

« Keolis will take over the rolling stock from current operators, i.e. around 350 vehicles, around a hundred of which already operate with alternative energies to diesel. Île-de-France Mobilités aims to deploy a fleet made up of 100% alternative energy buses to diesel by 2030: Keolis will support this ambition by deploying all of the Group's expertise in energy transition., recalls Youenn Dupuis who will quickly have to look into the reception of RATP agents, worried about leaving the public operator.

“Count on all employees who must be transferred”

The latter already know that they will leave the Régie with all their social and salary conditions in their backpack. In fact, they retain the majority of their achievements. Which will not prevent us from starting a social dialogue quickly. According to a source close to the matter, Keolis is not immediately planning to disrupt the schedules and service hours of the 1,100 employees (including 900 drivers) of this new entity, and should receive staff representatives from the month of January to put things in perspective.

« Our wish is to be able to count on all the employees who must be transferred. They are the actors of the public service, we want to write with them a new page centered on a real business project and an attractive social base. We will bring them together in small groups to address any concerns and answer their questions, without taboos”, affirms Youenn Dupuis, who is already preparing the next move.

By summer 2025, Keolis and other public transport specialists (Transdev, RATP, etc.) must position themselves on the first batches of buses in inner Paris. This timetable, slightly shifted by the outgoing government to avoid great social pressure during the Paris 2024 Olympics, will however end up being implemented and IDFM should decide on these lines, which are the most frequented, by October 2025 To prepare for this major competition, IDFM should, according to our information, convene a large tripartite meeting (Transdev, Keolis, IDFM) in January to get the ball rolling.