Development of a Decision Aiding Tool for the Evolution of Public Transport Ticket Pricing in the Paris Region

Observation of social and economic trends (falling population in the inner city of Paris, increased commuter flows between the centre and the suburbs, and demand for local ticket prices) has led the Syndicat des Transports Parisiens (STP, the Paris transport authority) to re -examine the ticket price system as it is today. Reform of this system will involve a great many stakeholders in the transport world, whose interests are not necessarily the same; they must participate in this project so that a future ticket pricing structure will be acceptable to all. Therefore all those involved must be able to take part in the study which will precede the decisions. With this in mind, the STP has called for a methodological study which will allow the impact of ticket price changes based on zoning to be evaluated. The main line s of research concern three phases: ƒ Definition and evaluation of zoning choices in the Ile de France, ƒ Quality analysis of potential offer and demand in the zones thus selected, ƒ Evaluation and comparison of the various ticket pricing hypotheses. This methodology will take the form of software which will be the basis for analysis and dialogue between the stakeholders involved in ticket price changes. This software must allow first, input, evaluation, modification and comparison of zoning choices, and second, the transport offer and the potential demand for each zoning choice to be analysed in order to design and evaluate the impact of a ticket pricing scenario applied to the zoning choice on the basis of hypothetical traffic flow evolution.