Change of course on the road leading to the establishment of competition from bus networks in the Paris region by the end of 2024. Ile-de-France Mobilités, the organizing authority for transport in the capital region , has decided to modify the rules for awarding bus contracts in order to strengthen social criteria in the final choice of an operator. Ile-de-France Mobilités will, in particular, increase the relative weight of the social score. This is expected to drop from 10% to 15% of the overall rating of future calls for tenders to the detriment of the price criterion, which will drop from 45% to 40%, the weight of the technical rating remaining unchanged, to 45%. .
It all started with a two-month strike started in September in Melun (Seine-et-Marne), some time after the effective start of the first bus networks resulting from the opening up to competition. The movement surprised the management of Ile-de-France Mobilités, chaired by Valérie Pécresse, the LR boss of Ile-de-France and candidate of the right-wing party in the presidential election of 2022. The situation has been judged sufficiently serious for a mediation mission to be entrusted by IDFM to Jean-Paul Bailly, former boss of RATP and La Poste, in order to put an end to the conflict.
“We did not expect such a long movement with so much suffering and reasons for discontent, explains Laurent Probst, Managing Director of Ile-de-France Mobilités. With Jean-Paul Bailly, we tried to find out more, by meeting the unions of striking staff and we realized that an operator had played a lot with the social criterion to win his calls for tenders. “
“It was starting to take a bad turn”
The operator in question is called Transdev. The strike, which ended at the end of October, began in four of its depots. Employees denounced degraded working conditions, reductions in remuneration and the disappearance of benefits. In summary, from “Social dumping” compared to the period preceding the opening of the market. Some of the operator’s decisions even surprised Mr. Bailly, such as the stubbornness in abolishing gift certificates during negotiations on the return to work.
“It was starting to take a bad turn, says Mr. Probst. The other candidates said to themselves: “We too are going to push the social barrier a little further, otherwise we will lose.” There was an early runaway. ” Transdev, a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts, is one of the major players in public transport to take part in this competitive battle in Ile-de-France, with Keolis, a subsidiary of SNCF, and RATP Dev, a subsidiary of the RATP.
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