<--- You can also click the Greening of Paris item on menu to your left

Start here for overview:
If you have not got to this yet, we propose that you start by spending a few minutes checking our this short PowerPoint presentation. It provides a quick overview of how this one city is undertaking to reinvent transport for its citizens and visitors, and in the process providing a defining example for other cities seeking to do the same. The treatment isolates and looks at five specific on-going innovations, that the city is combining to create the underpinnings of a new model. Vélib' is the first of these, with the other four (Carte Orange fare card, Mobilien BRT, Carsharing, and car-restraint strategies) now in process and to follow in the months ahead.

For the Greening of Paris overview presentation click here .

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1. Carte Orange
The "Carte Orange" is a fare card that allows its holder unlimited access to any part of Paris' public transport system (bus, metro, tramway, regional trains) without limitations over the chosen subscription period (weekly, monthly, annual, with higher rates for those living further away from the center). It was born in the early seventies out of a series of studies and proposals that were intended to facilitate the very complicated ticketing system that existed at the time and which was perceived as putting up barriers to easy use. It was initially seen as a marketing device at a time of falling public transit usage as the city became more and more car dependent. Over the years is has steadily evolved, and this Brief explains both how this has happened and what it means for new mobility in the city now and in the future.
---> Report in process.

(Summary available in Greening of Paris PowerPoint presentation.)

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2. Mobilien BRT
Paris has its own BRT (bus rapid transit) system, certainly one of the oldest and among the most innovative of its kind in the world. The Mobilien is a 21st century urban transport system using specially adapted state of the art buses, operating on physically separated lanes (in all cases taken out of mixed use, not through building new infrastructure). While it is based on the decades-long experience of the city and the transport operator (RATP) in the use of reserved bus-only lanes, it offers a quantum leap in terms of system design, technology and performance. It is also is perpetual development and expansion.
---> Report in process -- not yet available.

(Summary available in Greening of Paris PowerPoint presentation.)

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3. Car control strategies
The only alternative for policy makers in their push to create more effective transportation arrangements for their citizens is to cut back on the number of vehicles moving through the city - but this of course in parallel with significant supply improvements. The number of cars owned and operated by people living in Paris has steadily declined over most of the last decade. And at the same time there have been steady drops in car traffic. This Brief looks at how this is being achieved and what it means for the future.
---> Report in process -- not yet available.

(Summary available in Greening of Paris PowerPoint presentation.)

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4. The City Bike Strategies/Vélib' Policy Brief
This 130 page Policy Brief has been prepared to inform considering cities and agencies first hand as to how best to go about planning and implementing a city bike system of their own. It takes the new Vélib' system as a leading example and its point of departure, but then reaches much further back into the history of city bike developments as well as looking at how such a project can fit into the larger new mobility and sustainability framework of your city.

This is the first of several Briefs for "The Greening of Transport in Paris" series, which we have decided to carry out to show how one city is pioneering and combining some interesting approaches when it comes to translating the challenge of sustainable development and sustainable transport from theory into practice. Paris is certainly not the only city in the world that is reaching out to new city-transforming solutions, but as you will see it certainly gives us a very good place to start.

Without going any further you can, based on the information and links assembled on this page, already start to develop an informed view of how these projects work. The first of the links below will pull up some extracts from the report's introduction to the Vélib' project. If you click here to let us know of your interest, we can send you a complimentary copy of the Mayor's Summary report. The full report is available for subscription (click second itembelow).

1. Click here for extracts of report chapter on the Vélib' start-up.

2. Click to view prospectus and work program summary

3. Click to receive subscription information for the Policy Brief .

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5. Carsharing strategies
Of the five measures of the Greening of Transport in Paris project selected for your attention -- all pretty well demonstrate why Paris is often considered among the outstanding cities in the world in terms of pushing the envelope for new mobility thinking and practice -- Carsharing is not nearly as far along in its development at the rest. But this is about to change and this Brief looks at the past and present to better understand this very different future. Carsharing is an indispensable concomitant of a well working new mobility system. (It is also, we like to say, the last nail in the coffin of old mobility.)
---> Report in process -- not yet available.

(Summary available in Greening of Paris PowerPoint presentation.)

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