RATP Group

RATP Group

Type	State-owned company
Industry	Public transport
Founded	1948 (1948)
Headquarters	54 Quai de la Rapée 75012 Paris, France
Area served	Worldwide, with significant Île-de-France involvement
Key people	Catherine Guillouard (CEO)
Revenue	€5,56 billion (2015)
Number of employees	59,667 (2015)
Parent	Government of France
Subsidiaries	RATP Dev Ixxi
Website	ratp.fr

The RATP Group (French: Groupe RATP), also known as the Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (English: Autonomous Operator of Parisian Transports) is a state-owned public transport operator headquartered in Paris, France. Formed in 1948, the group has its origins as the public transport operator for the city of Paris. Its logo represents, in a stylized version, the Seine's meandering through the area around Paris as the face of a person looking up.

Today RATP is still responsible for most of the public transport in Paris and its surrounding Île-de-France region, including the Paris Métro, tram and bus services and part of the Réseau Express Régional (RER) network. In the Île-de-France region, RATP carries about 3 billion passengers per year.^[1]

Whilst the RATP's Paris operations are still a major part of the business, its operations have now extended to include businesses around the globe. These include involvement in the operation of bus, tram, rapid transit and inter-city rail services, located in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. RATP Group is currently the world's fifth largest operator in the public transport sector.

History

RATP headquarters

The RATP was created on 21 March 1948 by combining the assets of the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris (CMP), which operated the Paris Métro, and the Société des transports en commun de la région parisienne (STCRP), which operated the city's bus system.

Earlier, the CMP had absorbed the Société du Chemin de Fer Électrique Nord-Sud de Paris in 1930 and the Ligne de Sceaux in 1937, which extended commuter rail to the suburbs. The STCRP had been created on 1 January 1921 by the merger of about half a dozen independent bus and streetcar operators in the Paris area. By the time the STCRP was merged into the RATP, all of its streetcars had been replaced by bus routes.

In the early years of the 21st century, a partnership with the Transdev group resulted in RATP acquiring a minority shareholding in that group, with its many worldwide transport operations. However, in 2009, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, the majority owner of the Transdev group, started negotiations with Veolia Environnement to merge Transdev with Veolia Transport. As part of the resulting agreement, made in May 2010, it was agreed that the RATP Group would take over ownership of some of Transdev's operations in lieu of cash payment for its holdings in Transdev. This had a considerable impact on RATP's international profile.^[2][3][4]

On 1 August 2011 the RATP Group purchased Stagecoach Metrolink's contract to operate the Metrolink light rail system in Greater Manchester, England until July 2017.^[5] Two years later, in 2013 RATP purchased the nearby long-established coach company, Selwyns Travel, a National Express operator.

Operations in Paris

Paris Métro station at Charles de Gaulle - Étoile

RATP tram on tramway line 3 at Porte de Versailles

RATP bus at the Gare du Nord

In Paris, RATP operates, under its own name, on behalf of the Syndicat des transports d'Île-de-France (STIF), the Paris region transit authority. RATP's services constitute, in their own right, a multi-mode public transportation infrastructure, but also contribute to a larger multi-mode system extending out into the surrounding Île-de-France communities.

RATP's services include:

• The Paris Métro system of mostly underground rapid transit lines, which run throughout the city, with some lines extending somewhat beyond the city boundaries. The Métro has 16 lines, with 214 km (133 mi) of track and 300 stations, of which 62 provide connections between lines.^[6]
• Parts of the RER, the Paris regional express railway network that runs mostly underground in the city and overground in the rest of the region. The RATP owns sections of the infrastructure of lines A and B, and operates trains on the whole of those lines. The remainder of the system is owned by the RFF, the owner of the French national rail network, and the SNCF, the French national rail operator, operates trains on all five lines.
• The extensive Paris city bus system, including the night buses of the Noctilien network.
• Eight lines of the developing Paris tram system (the T4 is operated by the SNCF).
• The Montmartre funicular.

Ligne 341 is the first line of 100% electric full-size buses.^[7]

In addition to these directly operated services, wholly or partially owned subsidiary companies of the RATP also operate in the Paris region. Most of these provide local and regional bus services in Île-de-France communities outside Paris, but they also include the Orlyval automated airport people mover system, the FlexCité paratransit operator, and the Opentour tourist bus operator. These companies are owned through RATP's RATP Dev subsidiary, covered further below.^[8]

Operations outside Paris

Manchester Metrolink M5000 light rail vehicle in Greater Manchester in August 2011

A Gautrain unit in South Africa

A Hong Kong tram

London United Scania OmniCity in June 2011

RATP Group's subsidiary, RATP Dev (Dev being a contraction of Développement^[9]), operates RATP Group services outside Paris although it also operates some specialised services within Paris. Wholly and partly owned operations include the following:^[8][10]

Operations in France

• Cars Jacquemard, a bus operator in the Eure department of France
• Cars Perrier and SQYBUS, joint operators of bus services in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France
• CTVMI, a bus operator in the Yvelines department of France
• CTY Réseau Impulsyon, a bus operator in La Roche-sur-Yon, France
• FlexCité, a provider of paratransit services within the Île-de-France
• GVO Giraux Val d'Oise, a bus operator in the Val d'Oise department of France
• Mobicité, a provider of local and on-demand transport services in various parts of France
• Orlyval, operator of an automated people mover system that connects Paris's Orly Airport from the RER network
• Paris Opentour, an operator of tourist bus services in Paris
• STIVO, an urban bus operator in Cergy-Pontoise, France
• TIM Bus, a rural bus operator in Cergy-Pontoise and Mantes-la-Jolie, France
• TP2A, an urban bus operator in Annemasse, France

International operations

• Algiers Metro, the rapid transit system in Algiers, Algeria
• Autolinee Toscane, a coach operator in the area around Florence, Italy
• Azienda Mobilità e Trasporti, the operator of the public transport network of Genoa, Italy
• Bath Bus Company, an operator of City Sightseeing franchises in the English cities of Bath, Eastbourne, and Windsor, and the Welsh city of Cardiff, and of Air Decker services between Bath, south Bristol and Bristol Airport.
• Casablanca Tramway, operating the tram in Casablanca, Morocco.
• Dolomiti Bus, an urban and interurban bus operator in Belluno, Italy
• Ferroviaria Italiana, a regional train and bus operator in Tuscany, Italy
• Fullington Auto Bus Company, a bus operator and Trailways member in the north-eastern United States
• Gautrain, an inter-city train operator in South Africa
• Gem Bus, a cross-border bus operator serving areas of France and Switzerland around Geneva
• GEST, operator of florence tramway.
• London Sovereign, a bus operator in London, England
• London United, a bus operator in London, England^[11]
• Manchester Metrolink, light rail network in Greater Manchester, England and the largest light rail system in the United Kingdom.^[5]
• McDonald Transit Associates, a contract transit operator in the United States
• Quality Line/Epsom Coaches, a Surrey, England-based coach and bus operator^[12]
• RATP Do Brasil, operator of line 4 of the São Paulo Metro, São Paulo, Brazil
• Selwyns Travel, Runcorn, a large bus and coach group in the North West of England^[13]
• RDMT, operator of Sun Link and DC Streetcar
• The Original Tour^[14]
• Veolia Transport RATP Asia (VTRA),^[15] a joint venture with Transdev^[16] and also known as Transdev RATPDev or RATP Dev Transdev Asia, operates:
  • Buses in Nanjing, China under a joint venture with Nanjing Zhongbei^[17]
  • Line 9 of the Seoul Metro, Seoul, South Korea
  • Line 1 of the Mumbai Metro, Mumbai, India
  • Hong Kong Tramways, a tram operator in Hong Kong, China since April 2009^[15]
  • Singapore Ducktours, a tourist bus operator in Singapore (also includes Downtown Bay).
  • Shenyang Tramways in Shenyang, China since August 2013^[18][19]
• Open Loop New York - hop on hop off tour company in New York City commenced in May 2014^[20]
• Yellow Buses, a bus operator in Bournemouth, England^[11]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to RATP.

• Official website (English)
• Official website (corporate section)
• Tourist information in English
• Tram Travels: Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP)
• Electric bus - RATP wants to launch calls for massive deals of 2017.