In panic, Aurélie is active in front of the main line terminal in hall 2 of the Gare de Lyon, in Paris (12th century).
The 21-year-old young woman has just missed her train which was to take her to Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), for two minutes late.
With her black suitcase at her feet, she enters the number of her Youth Advantage card and buys a new ticket for a train in barely twenty minutes.
A long receipt comes out of the machine.
"Where's the ticket?"
»Worries Aurélie, trembling at the idea of staying at the quay.
It is in his hands.
On this thin white paper, his first and last name, seat and car numbers and a small QR code are displayed where all the information is recorded.
Her eyes widen.
"It's frankly very strange ... We could quickly lose it and it does not look like a train ticket, she says.
From an ecological point of view, it is better to have it on your laptop!
There, I was just too stressed… ”
An ecological goal
Aurélie is one of the first to discover the new SNCF “facturette” format ticket on Friday afternoon. In service since the start of the week, it is only available when you print your ticket at a self-service terminal in the station, for a mainline train only. Regional trains (TER, Transilien) are not included. This only concerns, for the moment, 5% of purchases. Only counters with agents will continue, for the moment, to deliver the famous cardboard ticket.
"It is an evolution which does not change anything for the customer, argue one at the SNCF.
Knowing that, even if he bought his ticket at a self-service kiosk, he does not have to print it and can present it on his mobile phone when boarding or during a control.
"This development is intended for an ecological purpose to" limit printing on cardboard ", more polluting than a simple receipt.
To read alsoNew tariffs at the SNCF: "If the prices are capped with the reduction card, that will encourage me to take it back"
Catherine, 65, had dropped the cardboard version for several years anyway. The retiree, "very digital", she boasts, only buys her tickets on her smartphone. More for the practical side, than for ecological conviction. “I have my phone with me all the time, I'm less likely to lose it than a physical ticket,” she argues, leaving for Marseille with her two grandchildren. I had never been attached to the big cardboard bill anyway. We are all going digital, we might as well get started as soon as we can! "
Loaded with two bags on her shoulders in addition to her huge purple suitcase, Florence, 57, is "proud" and "reassured" to have her famous cardboard ticket for her Paris-Béziers (Hérault) trip, where she joins her. girl for a week vacation. "It's collector apparently," she smiles. I will keep it, in a few years it may be worth a lot! This Caennaise (Calvados), little inclined to new technologies, has always preferred the physical object rather than the dematerialized note. "It's my
old-school side
," smiles Florence. It has a reassuring side to me. "
Grégory, a French expatriate in South Africa for his real estate activities, does not care what type of ticket he is traveling with.
On the other hand, he has the right to a frankly ubiquitous situation, on this Friday afternoon.
At the terminal, he is entitled to two tickets: one in bill format for Paris-Marseille, the other in cardboard format for TER Marseille-Toulon, on the same day.
"It's ridiculous," he chuckles.
I prefer the new one, with the QR code.
But anyway, two formats for a single trip, that has a little administrative French side that I missed!
"
