“From September 1, the buses operated by the RATP will gradually practice descent on demand after 10 p.m. throughout Paris”, announced Valérie Pécresse on Monday August 28 in an interview given to Le Parisien. Asked about the major changes to come in Ile-de-France public transport, the president of the region and Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) welcomed this “good news for safety, especially that of women”.
“The descent on demand consists of offering the possibility to anyone who wishes to get off between two bus stops in order to bring them closer to their destination”, recalls the RATP, which had already carried out a six-month experiment on 4 Noctilien lines (the N34 line between Gare de Lyon and Torcy, the N41 between Gare de l’Est and Mitry le Neuf, the N51 between Gare Saint-Lazare and Gare d’Enghien and the N63 between Gare Montparnasse and Polytechnique Vauve) and 5 regular large crown lines (lines 84, 268, 131, 144 and 303).
Already implemented on 70 bus lines in the outer suburbs, and in the process of being generalized to all nine new public service delegations deployed since 2021 in this territory, this service will now be generalized to all RATP buses, Paris and in the near crown. The normal sequence of things, according to IDFM, which ensures that this service has been “a great success” in the great crown.
No question of stopping anywhere: “the stop requested must be on the route of the line”, we specify at IDFM, recalling that “it is the driver who will decide the point exact descent (…) as close as possible to the destination”, provided that the stop is “well lit, with good visibility and a pedestrian path nearby”. In fact, drivers are now all trained in this procedure, which can only be carried out from the front of the vehicle. On this subject, IDFM intends to make a “specific communication in the buses”, with a component on safety.
