Several lines are concerned, both on the RER and the Transilien. In recent months, many users of public transport in the Ile-de-France region have suffered from the strong social mobilization against the pension reform, to the point where the minimum service has not even been carried out during certain so-called “black” days. Consequence: users, holders of a Navigo subscription, RER and Transilien lines, – which are operated by the SNCF – will be entitled to compensation between 10 and 91.30 euros, announced Thursday Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM ).
“More than 2 million subscribed users should be eligible for a refund,” said the regional transport authority in a press release, specifying that a platform for submitting refund requests will be set up “in July 2023”. Île-de-France Mobilités will thus receive compensation, as provided for in the contract which binds it to the SNCF. “The new clauses of the contracts recently drawn up and negotiated with the operators (RATP and SNCF) require them to set up a minimum service in the event of a strike”, confirms to Figaro Île-de-France Mobilités, which adds that “when this is not applied, users are entitled to a refund”.
A platform dedicated to reimbursement will open on Wednesday July 5, for one month. The users concerned will indeed have until Wednesday, August 2 to make themselves known. “Between January and April 2023, social movements had a strong impact on rail traffic”, confirms IDFM at the end of June. The Ile-de-France public transport authority explains how compensation will be calculated for the strike period at the start of 2023. For one to three days of disruption, a minimum reimbursement of 10 euros will be applied, for more than four days of disruption, the subscribers concerned will receive 2.80 euros in reimbursement per day of strike plus an additional 10 euros to compensate for the hardship suffered by Ile-de-France residents.
“Twenty-nine branches of train lines saw, over at least one day, service below 33%, and some had more than 20 days of service below 33%,” IDFM said Thursday. Concretely, this compensation will concern a large part of the users of the part of the network operated by the SNCF – both on the side of lines J, K, L, N, P and R of the Transilien and lines B north, C, D and E of the RER – but not those who use only the metro, less hampered by strike movements. “Even if some metro lines were more disrupted than others, the metro was still less affected this year than during the 2019 strike”, confirms Marc Pélissier, president of FNAUT Île-de-France. Line U, on the other hand, is not covered by this reimbursement.
In detail, each day below the minimum service gives access to compensation of 2.80 euros per day for a Navigo pass. A minimum compensation of 10 euros is provided for subscribers who have taken lines operated by the SNCF that have been affected by the strikes. Beyond that, the reimbursement is 2.80 euros per day, adding 10 euros “to compensate for the hardship suffered by travelers”, according to IDFM.
In total, this is “a lot of people concerned”, notes Marc Pélissier, for whom the priority will be “to really reimburse those who had no train or almost no train” during the strikes. According to him, this is the case for users of the R lines of the Transilien and the southern part of the RER D, “with stations closed for several days”. But will the refund be fully operational? During the previous reimbursement campaign for the poor quality of service observed for the year 2022, which required users to register on a dedicated platform, Marc Pélissier recalls that there had “unfortunately” been “a lot of losses “.
