Valérie Pécresse, president of Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), confirmed on Sunday July 9 to Les Echos that the timetable for opening up to competition for RATP Parisian buses would run until the end of 2026. A decision taken to calm concerns and avoid network disruptions during the 2024 Olympics.
According to the recommendations of a report, produced in particular by the former boss of the RATP Jean-Paul Bailly, the bus networks furthest from the center should be allocated to the new companies between September 2024 and until the end of the first half of 2025, with an entry into service period of nine to 12 months. The allocation of the last “lots” of the new division of the network, those of intramural Paris (left and right banks), will go until the end of 2026.
Initially hostile to this spreading, Valérie Pécresse said she was ready in mid-April for “a gradual implementation” of the opening to competition of Parisian buses, without giving up the deadline for the end of the monopoly in December 2024 which raises fears of social unrest during the summer of the Olympic Games.
According to Les Échos, the president of the Île-de-France region also provides that drivers changing employers can retain certain social benefits from the RATP, such as health coverage or the works council. The decree which governs their transfer granted them, in fact, less advantageous conditions.
IDFM must, to keep its promise, modify this decree with the agreement of the Ministry of Transport. According to the newspaper, nearly a thousand agents from certain areas of the middle crown should also benefit from this harmonization. The president of Île-de-France Mobilités also promises that the drivers will remain assigned to their current line, but also to the same depot, to avoid taking them too far from their place of work.
In return, Valérie Pécresse asks the drivers to waive for a period of one year the reduction of their working hours from 1 p.m. to 11 a.m. for the days “in double service”, the time to remedy shortages of drivers, say Les Echos.