Le Figaro Lyon
On Place Bellecour, scaffolding was installed in front of the facade of the building which houses the TCL local transport agency on the ground floor. Below the metal skeleton, there is effusion. Lyon residents looking to subscribe rub shoulders with users who have come to exchange their last red tickets, which became obsolete on February 15 after the introduction of a new reusable ticket.
“Why are they going faster?”
, says a lady in the queue located to the right of the entrance, pointing to the queue opposite. In front of the agency door, a TCL agent tries as best he can to organize two queues in this little chaos.
“Left for the tickets, right for the rest
,” he says several times due to the lack of an indication sign on site.
“But his left or our left?”
asks an elderly person already in the right lane. Pascale, Michel and Marie-Odile are also in the right lane. The bad.
“We were told an hour ago to come here and now it’s the opposite
,” they lament. All three came to exchange their books of 10 red tickets purchased at the start of the year.
“This is the second time we’ve tried. Yesterday we gave up in front of the Grange Blanche agency in full view of the world. I bought these tickets two or three days before the change because I wasn’t aware of it
,” says Pascale.
“Why not be able to trade in tobacco shops?”
Further in the line, Michelle and Antoinette try their luck for the second time as well.
“We came earlier today but there were too many people
,” they confide. If the latter believe that the new ticket “
is simpler because it is faster on the gates
”, they do not understand that the old tickets can only be exchanged in TCL agencies:
“Why not have mobilized tobacconists and other places of sale as usual even if it means paying them back later? There everything is concentrated in five places. It’s nonsense…”
It’s not just the Lyonnais who seem upset by this system. Violette came from Paris for
“work”
this Wednesday. Being regularly in Lyon, she bought her tickets in books of 10 and
“not being from here”
, she had not heard of this change in format.
“I find this way of working lamentable. I came for professional meetings and in the end I'm going to wait two hours just to change tickets? It's scandalous"
.
Read alsoRhône: a new brigade of public transport police in 243 municipalities around Lyon
50 million tickets sold last year
According to a TCL agency manager cited by
Le Progrès
, since March, 150,000 red tickets have been exchanged in the five TCL agencies. These old tickets, which were only usable until March 15, can be returned and exchanged for free until July 15. In total, 480 vending machines have been installed on the network to be able to issue the new contactless tickets. Last year, 50 million single tickets were sold on the TCL network, which has 1.9 million users every day. A figure down 15% since the arrival in May 2022 of validation by bank card directly on security gates or on buses and trams.