Covid-19: Ile-de-France refunds travel pass holders
Users with season ticket passes for transport systems in the Ile-de-France region - including the Navigo pass - are to receive a refund for the month of April due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
For people still working - whose work cannot be done at home, and who are using their pass “to go to work for essential functions of the country” - will receive a refund for the month, whether they hold a monthly pass or an annual one.
Those who are in confinement and who have been able to work from home, will be eligible for a pro-rata refund on annual season passes for the month of April.
The move is intended to help both those who are still required to travel, and those who had bought an annual pass but now cannot use it due to the epidemic, explained regional president, Valérie Pécresse.
She told newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche: “I will propose to the administrative council of [transport network] Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), of which I am president, the total refund of the Passe Navigo, but also the Navigo Senior and the Imagin’R card, for all season ticket holders, for the month of April.”
This will equate to €75.20 for the monthly or annual Navigo pass, and €37.60 for the Navigo Senior and Imagin'R.
Those eligible for a refund will need to login to a dedicated website set up for the purpose, in May. More details on the site will be published closer to the time.
The measure is set to cost IDFM “more than €100 million”, Ms Pécresse said.
She said: “Ile-de-France travel today is seeing 10% of normal traffic, which is normally at five million passengers a day. This means that there are still 500,000 people performing essential functions in this country, who still need public transport.”
Ms Pécresse said she had no plans to make Ile-de-France transport free during the pandemic, as this would be “an invitation to travel, [which would be] totally against the spirit of confinement”.
She said: “It is totally out of the question to leave the barriers open to those who, in certain neighbourhoods, are not respecting confinement. I am thinking of the groups of young people who think they are safe and do not realise that they can spread the virus.”
No refunds have been announced for the month of March.
Annual season ticket holders are not currently able to cancel their passes completely, as this requires the user to go to a ticket counter before the 20th of the previous month, which is clearly not allowed under confinement.
