The french capital city of Paris has always been at the forefront of the public transport. Today, RATP, SNCF and about one hundred private bus operators are carrying passengers in PARIS and suburbs. This area is called Ile de France with a population of about 12 million inhabitants. The public transport carries each year more than 3.5 billion passengers.

The public transport is coordinated through a union call STIF and the means of transport are:

RATP was one of the very first networks in the world to introduce magnetic tickets in 1968 to replace the plain cardboard Edmoson ticket immortilized by Serge Gainsbourg in his song "Le poinçonneur des Lilas". Today these magnetic tickets are still in use for single tickets, all other season tickets have migrated onto NAVIGO, a Calypso contactless card. It is the intention to replace magnetic tickets by disposable contactless ticket but the cost of this technology is still far to high.

For those who like details, the sites below are a mine of information.