A heavy rain that you hadn't anticipated greets you at the exit of the metro? No problem... You can now go to the ticket office of any RATP station (metro or RER) to borrow an umbrella, free of charge, subject to payment of a deposit of 7 euros. This amount (to be paid by card or cash) is returned to users when they return the loaner umbrella, again at any station, once the weather has receded.
Two years after launching this "customer service", first only on line 14 and then since last year on lines 3, 8 and 11, the RATP has decided to extend it to almost its entire rail network. "This aid, which is open to all passengers – Navigo subscribers as well as others, Ile-de-France residents and tourists alike – has already been a great success," explains Sabrina Lamacq, director of "customer experience" at RATP, recalling that the agency has already lent 2,300 umbrellas since 2021.
The canvas made from recycled plastic bottles
Despite the generalization of the service, "courtesy" umbrellas will remain unavailable in a few hundred stations (out of a total of 340) due to the configuration of premises unsuitable for lending operations. The list of participating stations is available on the ratp.fr/parapluies website. In any case, the rise of the system is accompanied by a "move upmarket" of umbrellas. "The previous model was a bit flimsy. Some customer feedback was bad. For the extension of the system, we therefore had an umbrella made that was a little more qualitative," says Sabrina Lamacq, who specifies that the fabric of the "eco-designed" umbrellas comes from recycled plastic bottles.
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The umbrellas of the metro – blue in the colors of Île-de-France Mobilités and not "green RATP", do not bear the logo of the Régie. But they have a discreet reproduction of Serge the rabbit (the company's mascot) and the slogan "the RATP accompanies you throughout your journey". The improvement in the quality of umbrellas has justified an increase of 2 euros in the amount of the deposit, previously set at 5 euros. "But it is returned as soon as the umbrella (in good condition) is returned to a participating station," the promoters of the operation are keen to remind us. Unless users decide to keep the umbrella, for the amount of the deposit. It seems that 70% of the first users of this lending service have opted for the latter.