A public transport network is infrastructure and digital. This is why the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region created, four years ago, the New Aquitaine Mobility Syndicate, which is developing a multimodal and connected platform, the main objective of which is to create a single ticket system for all urban transport networks in New Aquitaine. The ultimate goal is to be able to plan and buy your public transport journey from Agen to Bordeaux, from Tulle to Périgueux, from home with a single app.
Brick by brick, the Modalis platform first set up a subscription card, then a transport route calculator including all possible offers, including self-service bicycles and carpooling, and finally the purchase of tickets (via the Ticket Modalis application, which will merge with Modalis) for thirteen urban networks in New Aquitaine, as well as for the TER and certain regional coaches. The year 2023 should see Modalis coming to “cap” 25 of the 28 urban networks in the region with its ticket purchase offer.
New networks integrated by bursts until 2025
“Tomorrow, you will go to Modalis, you will do your route calculation, you will click on the “buy” button and you will have the [quasi]-all public transport tickets in the New Aquitaine region, which will avoid having to go through several applications”, summarizes the director of the union Jérôme Kravetz. What will be possible on the Modalis mobile app, will also be possible on ticket distributors which will be deployed gradually in the networks of the region, and which will offer not only the tickets of the network concerned, but also those of other networks, without having to go through three different counters to buy three titles.
Concretely, a new version of the Modalis platform will be offered in March 2023, then in September the Modalis card will be reviewed and corrected with the possibility of integrating the bank card as a means of validation, while distributors will begin to be disseminated in the networks urban. “From the end of 2023, we will integrate the new networks, such as Guéret and Tulle, for the purchase of tickets, and we will continue in bursts until 2025 to reach the 25 urban networks” continues Jérôme Kravetz.
“Develop seamless networks”
As far as the SNCF is concerned, the TER offer is already available on Modalis, but not (yet) the TGV. A story of big money… “SNCF is asking us for compensation to sell TGV at home, explains the president of the mixed syndicate, and vice-president of the region for transport, Renaud Lagrave. But at the same time, the SNCF came to see us telling us that they would be interested in selling our network… So we’re going to start talking, and we’ll see… We still represent 25 networks. »
The development of MaaS (Mobility as a Service, or multimodal digital services) should cost around three to four million euros over four years, estimates the mixed union. “It costs 40 to 50% less than if each Transport Organizing Authority (AOT) did its own market” insists Renaud Lagrave. “And we will have the ability to develop seamless networks, continues Jérôme Kravetz, since we will move from one network to another with our card or smartphone in the same ecosystem. »