Is the reimbursement system for the Imagine R pass and the Vélib subscription for young Parisians a victim of its success?
Since December, the City of Paris website has indicated that the processing time, “usually 2 months”, has been extended to 5 months “due to technical incidents”.
Contacted, the Town Hall specifies that this technical latency “is linked to the volume of data received, which overloaded the servers”.
“I made my request on October 16, when I was told there would be a 2-month delay,” fumes Sophie, who spent 373 euros to obtain an Imagine R school pass for her high school son.
During his last two requests, “the deadlines were already long”, but recovery took place “roughly before the end of the year”.
This year, almost five months after submitting his application, the wait drags on.
“I am starting to get impatient because, like many families, I am counting on the reimbursement of this large sum.
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91,000 requests
On the town hall side, we justify this delay by the “success” of this measure of full reimbursement, without conditions of means, of public transport, adopted by the Paris Council in July 2020. “There were 80,000 reimbursement requests in 2021, against 91,000 today, including 3,600 more in 2024." The City's teams "are mobilized" and "reimbursements will be made", assures the municipality, without specifying whether certain families have already recovered the amount advanced.