“We will ask them to close their application.”
This Wednesday, all it took was a short sentence from Laurent Probst, boss of Île-de-France Mobilités, to get things going.
In an interview with Ouest-France, he admitted wanting to make changes to Parisian transport plans during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. With a surplus of 1 to 2 million foreign people and in order to avoid congestion on the Paris metro, IDF Mobilités plans to offer some of its users routes that differ from those usually offered.
The objective is simple: to ensure that those attending the Games do not all find themselves in the same place, at the same time, in the corridors of the metro.
Also read: Tickets, transport, event sites… The answers to all your questions about the Paris 2024 Games
Today to get from Châtelet to the Olympic site of Roland Garros, the usual route would be to take line 4, then 10. This is the quickest.
But to avoid the rush, some users could be told to take line 14, then 9. But to get there, IDF Mobilités must collaborate with Google Maps and Citymapper.
And Laurent Fobst wanted to show his muscles by announcing that if the applications did not update their plans to go in the direction of the French group, they would be censored from part of their service.
Comments immediately nuanced by IDF Mobilités itself.
Nothing yet shows that the collaboration will be aborted and discussions are still ongoing.
IDFM will even launch its own directions app in the spring.