how transport applications want to help users travel better

With less than three months before the Olympic and Paralympic Games, transport applications are organizing themselves to offer the most useful features to the flow of travelers expected in Ile-de-France transport this summer.

Île-de-France, and in particular Paris, is preparing to welcome part of the world this summer. 11.3 million visitors are expected for the Olympic Games alone, 13% of whom are foreigners. Many Ile-de-France residents are therefore wondering whether the transport network, regularly saturated or suffering from problems, will be able to cope with the flow of travelers.

Valérie Pécresse, president of the Ile-de-France region and Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) wants to be reassuring on the issue. In an interview given to Parisian At the end of April, Valérie Pécresse once again assured that “we are ready” less than three months before the Paris Olympic Games.

However, faced with anticipated disruptions, many Ile-de-France residents and visitors will turn to their smartphones and transport applications to facilitate their travel. Several of them have integrated features specific to the Olympic Games, in order to best accompany spectators to the event locations. To help you choose, BFMTV.com has made a selection.

· “Paris Public Transport 2024”: the official application

Tuesday April 23, “Transport Public Paris 2024”, the application dedicated to travel during the Olympic Games, was officially launched, with the “Trajet Paris 2024” option.

This functionality must guarantee “good real-time distribution of spectators between transport lines in order to limit crowd phenomena and waiting times”.

The application’s algorithm tends to avoid too large a flow of travelers on certain lines, by redirecting users if necessary on an alternate route, sometimes longer.

According to IDFM, the authority responsible for transport plans for the Olympic Games, this is the only application to list all the sites and points of interest linked to the Paris 2024 Games.

Available in six languages ​​(French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German), the application will also offer, during the month of June, the possibility for its users to purchase the Paris 2024 pass (usable only from July 20 until September 8, 2024 for the tidy sum of 16 euros per day).

· Citymapper wants to “accompany you to the entrance to the stadium”

In addition to the official application created by IDFM, other applications, already used by Ile-de-France residents and/or tourists, are working to make user journeys as easy as possible.

This is the case of Citymapper, the best-rated route planning application in France. The company will collaborate with IDFM “to facilitate the travel of Parisians and visitors during the Olympic Games, whether to go to La Défense or the Stade de France”.

As with “Paris Public Transport 2024”, Citymapper will include route suggestions recommended by IDFM, “designed to bypass overcrowded routes and stations, thus ensuring comfortable and safe travel”.

The application created in 2011 wanted to support Olympic spectators “to the entrance gate of the stadium corresponding to their seat, thus eliminating the anxiety of wandering around a huge Olympic venue“. However, “due to the new rules defining the security perimeter of stadiums”, this will not be possible, the company announced to BFMTV.com on April 28.

“We will nevertheless be able to accompany them to the security entrance of the stadium, and the Games staff will have to direct them to their seats,” continues the communication from Citymapper.

On top of that, Citymapper “will provide practical advice, such as where to get on the train/metro, the closest exit to your destination.” Features already integrated into the application normally.

· Transit wants to inform as soon as the application is opened

As for Transit, an application best known across the Atlantic, messages will be displayed in the application during the Olympics “to inform users of service changes and alternatives that can help them get around Paris”, indicates the company. at BFMTV.com.

The company, used by 520,000 people in France, the majority of whom are in Île-de-France, is also in discussions with IDFM to improve its transport plan during the Olympic period.

Additionally, the app’s core functionality “can help users report overload conditions they encounter, and this information is shared with other users in real time as they use the app.”

· 45 languages ​​available on Moovit

As with Transit, Moovit allows users to “report, view and validate crowding levels so users can see how crowded the station is before entering, or how busy a bus or train line train is crowded before boarding.

Already present in 112 countries, Moovit especially wants to stand out thanks to its application available in 45 languages. The company explains to BFMTV.com that spectators from all over the world “will be able to use the application in their local language to easily travel to the Olympic events”.

Moovit recently integrated a feature that allows the user to schedule a trip outside a region. For example, a spectator can schedule a journey between two competition venues, such as from the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis, to the Pierre Mauroy stadium, in Villeneuve-d’Ascq.

· Wagon, the Ile-de-France application that aims to be practical

Finally, Wagon, an application from the Ile-de-France region, hopes to find its place on smartphones this summer. The application is currently tested by a thousand people. The objective for Arno Cellarier, its developer, is for the application to be available on IOS as quickly as possible, the latter tells BFMTV.com.

Just like Moovit or Transit, it is possible with Wagon to indicate a large crowd, but not only that. Report pickpockets, canceled trains, a terminal that no longer works, inaccessible station toilets… Users can update incidents in real time.

Another practical feature for tourists: unserved stops on the RER are also displayed.

Tourists and residents of the Ile-de-France region will therefore have a wide choice of tools that can help them get around during the Games period. The authorities point out that the public transport lines serving the competition and celebration sites will be very busy with spectators and that the simplest thing, when possible, is to avoid them and favor walking or cycling.