RATP Group


The RATP Group is a French state-owned enterprise that operates public transport systems primarily in Paris, France, with growing presence internationally. Headquartered in Paris, it originally operated under the name Régie autonome des transports parisiens. Its logo represents the Seine's meandering path through the Paris Region stylised as the face of a person looking up.
Describing itself as the third largest actor in public transport worldwide, in 2024, RATP Group consolidates a total revenue of 7.1 billion euros, employs over 73,500 people, and provides for over 4 billion passenger journeys annually.
RATP Group was established in 1949 with the express purpose of operating Paris's public transport system. During the twentieth century, it focused solely on the provision of the capital's various forms of transit, from the Paris Métro, Île-de-France tram, and the bus network">London Buses">bus network, as well as part of the regional express rail network. However, since 2002, RATP Group's operations have no longer been geographically restricted; it has competitively pursued contracts to operate transit systems around the world. It also had a partnership with, and a minority shareholding in, Transdev, which has further involved RATP Group in various global transport operations. During 2002, RATP Dev was created as the Group's dedicated international operations and maintenance subsidiary; it is present in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.
RATP Group's Paris-related activities are still a major part of its business through to the present day; in 2019, it was recorded that, in the Île-de-France region, it carried roughly 3.3 billion passengers per year. In 2019, RATP Group's consolidated revenue was ; it employed 64,000 people at that time. In recent decades, the company has operated on an increasingly competitive basis as a result of legislative changes.
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History

The RATP was created on 1 January 1949 by combining the assets of the Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris, which operated the Paris Métro, and the Société des Transports en Commun de la Région Parisienne, which operated the city's bus system.
Prior to this, the CMP had absorbed the Nord-Sud Company in 1930 and the Ligne de Sceaux in 1937, which operated commuter rail to the suburbs. The STCRP had been created on 1 January 1921 by the merger of about half a dozen independent bus and streetcar operators in the Paris area. By the time the STCRP was merged into the RATP, all of its streetcars had been replaced by bus routes.

Shift towards competitive operations

A major change in French law came on 3 November 2009, when article 5 of the ARAF law came into effect. This law opens public transport operation to competition. The law was part of a broader push by the European Union to open all passenger transport operation to competition. Under this law, the RATP Group lost the exclusive right to operate all new public transport lines immediately. The company's exclusive operation rights for existing lines would expire over time, with the bus network going out to bid 15 years later in 2024, the tram network going out to bid 20 years later in 2029, and the Metro and RER lines out to bid 30 years later in 2039.
With the RATP anticipating this shift to a competitive environment, the company began to reorganize itself.
In the early years of the 21st century, a partnership with Transdev resulted in RATP acquiring a minority shareholding in that group, with its many worldwide transport operations. However, in 2009, the Caisse des dépôts et consignations, the majority owner of the Transdev, started negotiations with Veolia to merge Transdev with Veolia Transport. As part of the resulting agreement, made in May 2010, it was agreed that RATP would take over ownership of some of Transdev's operations in lieu of cash payment for its holdings in Transdev. This gave RATP a considerable number of international operations.
In 2009, RATP entered the United States by purchasing transit contractor McDonald Transit Associates. McDonald operated Fort Worth Transportation Authority in Texas, Votran in Florida, and Waco Transit System in Texas, among others. On 1 August 2011, the RATP Group purchased Stagecoach Metrolink's contract to operate the Metrolink light rail system in Greater Manchester, England until July 2017. Two years later, in 2013, RATP purchased the nearby long-established coach company, Selwyns Travel, a National Express operator.
In 2023, RATP Dev definitively left Algeria following the transfer of all its interests in Algerian tramways to an Algerian state-owned group. Since 2012, and growing with the progressive opening of networks, RATP Dev managed up to seven tramway networks in Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Sidi Bel Abbès, Ouargla, and Sétif, thus marking over a decade of strong development of this mode of transport in the country. From 2011 to 2020, RATP Dev was also responsible for the operation and maintenance of the Algiers metro.
As of January 1, 2025, RATP Dev took over the operation and maintenance of Lyon’s heavy public transport modes for a period of at least 10 years, marking a major new step in its development, particularly its presence in France outside the Île-de-France region. The contract with SYTRAL Mobilités, won against one of its main competitors, Keolis, includes the Lyon metro, tramway, the Rhônexpress airport link, the funiculars, and the Navigône river shuttle on the Saône..
In December 2025, the sale of RATP Dev’s remaining UK activities – Tootbus London and Tootbus Bath – to FirstGroup was announced. Following this transaction, RATP Dev exited the UK market and discontinued its tourist bus operations outside of Paris and Brussels.

Presidents

The current president and CEO of the RATP, Jean Castex, is in office since 28 November 2022.
Hiba Farès is the Chairman of the Board of RATP Dev since January 2022.

Operations in Paris

In Paris, RATP operates, under its own name, on behalf of and under contract with Île-de-France Mobilités, the Paris region transit authority. RATP's services constitute, in their own right, a multi-mode public transportation infrastructure, but also contribute to a larger multi-mode system extending out into the surrounding Île-de-France communities.
RATP's services in the Greater Paris area include:
Paris bus route 341 was RATP's first line equipped with 100% electric full-size buses. By early 2021, there were over 150 full battery electric buses in the fleet with a target of 1,500 by 2025.
With regard to the future Grand Paris Express orbital metro network of which all lines will be fully automated and driverless, RATP will act as the infrastructure manager for lines 15, 16, 17 and 18, and operate Paris Métro Line 15 through the ORA consortium led by RATP Dev with minority partners ComfortDelGro and Alstom.

Operations outside Paris

RATP Dev, established in 2002 as a 100% subsidiary of the RATP Group, provides operations and maintenance of passenger transport services outside of the "historical" RATP network in the Greater Paris area.
RATP Dev is currently present in 16 countries, namely Australia, Belgium, Canada, China's SAR Hong Kong, Egypt, France, Italy, Morocco, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. Wholly and partly owned operations include the following:

Operations in France

Heavy rail

Other modes

Other activities

In December 2022, RATP Dev launches hydrogen training center in La Roche-sur-Yon.
In June 2024, RATP partnered with Wabtec to equip all its RER A trains with a new brake lining that eliminates 70-90% of the health-damaging fine particles found on platforms. Similar tests are being carried out on some metro lines. The same year, RATP and Île-de-France Mobilités signed an accessibility charter to make it easier for blind and partially-sighted people to travel on Île-de-France's transport network.

Operations outside France

Heavy rail

Metro and tramway

Bus and coach

Italy
  • Tuscany regional bus network including 4,800 employees, 2,700 vehicles and 57 depots, via the Autolinee Toscane subsidiary
  • Cilia Italia, Lazio
    United Kingdom
RATP Dev's presence in the United Kingdom is mainly concentrated in London with its portfolio of bus services on behalf of Transport for London. Through its three subsidiaries London United, Quality Line and London Sovereign, RATP Dev manages 1129 vehicles on 96 routes out of 10 garages, and has 3387 employees, as of 2020. Early 2021, RATP Dev announced that it is to close its Quality Line subsidiary and Epsom depot. The closure was effective as of July 2021.
On 16 June 2021, the firm announced it had placed an order for 195 electric buses for its London operations to be delivered jointly by Alexander Dennis and BYD Auto, the by then largest ever full battery electric bus order in the UK.
On 22 September 2021, RATP Dev and SeaLink Travel Group announced that their respective West London bus operations would merge into a new joint venture called RATP Dev Transit London, with RATP Dev holding 87.5% of shares and SeaLink 12.5%. The incorporation of the joint venture was finalised on 11 December 2021. Tower Transit's Lea Interchange garage, located in East London, was not part of the joint venture and remained unaffected until sold off separately to Stagecoach London.
United States
RATP operates various transit systems in the United States through its American entity, RATP Dev USA:

Tootbus

RATP Dev operates hop-on hop-off tours using double-decker buses under the Tootbus brand in several cities:
  • Tootbus Paris
  • Tootbus Brussels

Other

Since 2013, RATP Dev, in a consortium with TPG and Pomagalski, manages the Salève cable car, in the French Alps. Ridership of the cable car has increased by 50% since 2013, notably after the introduction of shuttle buses from Annemasse and Saint-Julien-en-Genevois. The contract of the RATP Dev-led consortium has been renewed in 2019 for 12 additional years, until 2031.
In September 2020, RATP Dev announces a partnership with Getlink to jointly bid under the "Régionéo" brand name for regional rail services in France which will gradually opened to competitive tendering. Ultimately, this partnership would not succeed, and RATP Dev wins its first contract in French regional rail, in Normandy, in 2025, acting alone without any partners.
In February 2023, Sepulveda Transit Corridor Partners, one of the two private sector teams executing the project development agreement with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the future Sepulveda Transit Corridor, announced to have selected RATP Dev as its operations and maintenance partner.
In October 2024, RATP Dev and the East Japan Railway Company announce their association to jointly bid for operations and maintenance of the North–South Commuter Railway, in the Philippines.

Former operations