Lines 28, 67 and 128, already electric, come to the Corentin depot to recharge.

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R. Le Dourneuf

  • In 2025, all Ile-de-France buses will be electric, CNG or hybrid.

    The objective of the “Clean Bus” plan is to halve the greenhouse gas emissions of RATP public transport.

  • There are 4,700 diesel buses that must be replaced gradually and the depots must be adapted to electricity or biogas.

  • Ile-de-France will invest 1.8 billion euros to pass all its own buses will cost the region the sum of.

In 2025, all buses in Paris and the greater crown will run green.

A promise made by Valérie Pécresse during the visit this Wednesday of the "Corentin" bus center in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.

Fully equipped to receive electric buses, this depot is one of the flagships of the RATP green transport program.

Like him, the 25 bus centers of the Paris transport authority are in the process of being transformed to allow the buses to be maintained, repaired and recharged with electricity or natural gas for vehicles (NGV).

The plan to gradually replace 4,700 diesel buses by 2025 with greener models is not done with a snap of the fingers.

“It is not enough to say: 'I buy electric buses'.

We need the infrastructure to accommodate them, ”explains Catherine Guillouard, CEO of RATP who accompanied the president of the Ile-de-France region for this visit.

This “industrial challenge” materializes in the Corentin bus center.

Equipped with 189 electrical terminals, it can recharge the 182 buses attached to it.

Five hours are enough to refuel, or 220 kilometers of range.

Upstairs, a repair workshop adapted to these vehicles sees the 30 mechanics of the complex busy.

The workshop also had to be redeveloped because electric buses have certain specificities, such as having six batteries, four of which are under the roof.

You have to be able to access it.

Gas stays out of Paris

In the RATP depot in Massy (Essonne), the adaptation is quite different.

There is no question of electric terminals here, the buses run on CNG, or biogas.

The gas terminals are outside, for safety.

For these same reasons, the thirteen centers that will be converted to gas will all be located outside Paris.

Eight of the 25 RATP bus depots are currently under construction to undergo this type of change.

Two others will start their transfer by the end of 2020. All this work will not be too much to accommodate the fleet that RATP is preparing.

600 new vehicles per year

In order to prepare for the opening up of bus lines to competition on December 31, 2024, Ile-de-France Mobilités has set itself the target of halving its greenhouse gas emissions.

To do this, in 2019 it has already placed an order for more than 600 electric and CNG buses.

A new call for tenders will soon be launched for the purchase of 2,100 buses (1,400 CNG and 700 electric).

These vehicles will be added to the hybrid models (1,100 diesel / electric buses) currently in circulation.

If they are more polluting, they will complete their mission, as Nicolas Cartier, director of the “Clean buses” plan at RATP explains: “We don't buy any more, but their lifespan exceeds 2025 so we don't are not going to part with it.

"Thus, from 2021, old vehicles will be replaced at a rate of 600 per year, on the 350 lines that make up the current network.

Buses with new equipment

Changing transport equipment that provides a billion trips per year comes at a cost.

In total, 1.8 billion euros will be invested.

If the region is funding this work, it has received a financial boost from the European Commission in the form of a grant of 23 million euros for the purchase of electric buses and for the conversion. bus depots.

The Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations is also helping to support the project by granting a loan of the same amount, ie 23 million euros.

In addition to seeing greenhouse gas emissions decrease, Ile-de-France residents will benefit from new equipment available to them.

For example, the doors will open outwards, allowing buses to accommodate two wheelchairs, instead of just one currently.

A new air conditioning system will be present and information screens on the lines will be installed in these "green" buses.

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  • Paris

  • Electric car

  • ecology

  • Valerie Pécresse

  • Bus

  • RATP

  • Public transport