Europe 1 with AFP 4:12 p.m., October 14, 2021

The good old metro ticket is (soon) over!

The end of the sale of "paper" ticket books began on Thursday and will be definitively recorded in March 2022. But don't panic: cards or dematerialized solutions will take over, in particular the Navigo Easy card or the Navigo Liberté + contract. .

The sale of booklets of "paper" metro tickets will cease Thursday in a hundred stations and stations of the public transport network in Ile-de-France, and will no longer be offered at all in March 2022, to be replaced by cards or dematerialized solutions. A "gradual stop plan" for their sale, approved in April by the board of directors of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), promotes the replacement of the traditional card by transport tickets available on the Navigo Easy card , smartphones and the Navigo Liberté + contract.

The Navigo Easy card allows you to buy tickets individually or in booklet.

It is sold for 2 euros, which is profitable on the first purchase since the booklets of ten cardboard tickets are sold for 2 euros more expensive.

The Navigo Liberté + card is a subscription formula allowing access to the network - with the notable exception of RER and trains outside Paris -, the journeys counted being billed the following month.

A "tariff shield" and alternatives

These two formulas must be extended to the whole Île-de-France by the end of 2022, with a price cap of 5 euros per trip (or 40 euros for ten) - a measure called a "tariff shield" which must cost a around sixty million euros per year to the regional authority. IDFM also offers single tickets by SMS - more expensive - to take the bus, or the purchase of transport tickets on Android smartphone.

The single ticket will remain on sale for exceptional trips.

And, "no worries: you can of course continue to use the t + tickets from your cardboard notebooks", assures IDFM.

Each year, nearly 5 million tickets are demagnetized due to their proximity to keys or coins ... And one in ten tickets bought in a booklet on average is never used because lost, damaged or forgotten, specifies the RATP .