Crossing Paris Ticket Advice

[BRX]

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End of the line for Paris’ iconic metro ticket

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I want to travel right across Paris, from Orry-la-ville to Malesherbes using RER line D.

I have the My Navigo, IDF Mobilities & Bonjour RATP on my phone, but as far as I can see, there's no way to buy a ticket for that journey using any of these apps.

Is that right? Does this mean there's no way to buy a ticket for that journey online, and will have to buy it in person at Orry-la-Ville?

 

[signed]

I want to travel right across Paris, from Orry-la-ville to Malesherbes using RER line D.

I have the My Navigo, IDF Mobilities & Bonjour RATP on my phone, but as far as I can see, there's no way to buy a ticket for that journey using any of these apps.

Is that right? Does this mean there's no way to buy a ticket for that journey online, and will have to buy it in person at Orry-la-Ville?

Both Malesherbes and Orry la ville are out of the Ile-de-France region and fare scheme, you will need to buy a ticket on the day at a ticket machine I am afraid.

You are likely to be able to buy a through ticket though.

 

[BRX]

Both Malesherbes and Orry la ville are out of the Ile-de-France region and fare scheme, you will need to buy a ticket on the day at a ticket machine I am afraid.

You are likely to be able to buy a through ticket though.

Thanks. Do you know if I'll need to wait until getting to Orry-la-ville before being able to buy it, or am I likely to be able to buy it earlier in the day from an SNCF machine elsewhere (I'll be in Amiens the night before)?

 

[signed]

Do you know if I'll need to wait until getting to Orry-la-ville before being able to buy it

You're gonna need to wait until getting to Orry, those fares are quite specific.

And you're going to want to avoid using a TER branded machine, because those would probably sell you on the TER service going to Paris Nord.

 

[island]

Thanks. Do you know if I'll need to wait until getting to Orry-la-ville before being able to buy it, or am I likely to be able to buy it earlier in the day from an SNCF machine elsewhere (I'll be in Amiens the night before)?

You will only be able to get it from Orry la Ville and as signed says avoid the TER machines.

 

[SHD]

Yes, these fares to stations outside Île-de-France that are only served by RER or Transilien trains (Malesherbes, Gisors, and a few others) are a real mess.

Since you’ll be on your bike, you can save a bit though.
First, how do you plan to reach Orry-la-Ville? The station is deep in the middle of the Chantilly forest. Anyway, you can literally cycle along the mainline until you reach Survilliers-Fosses, the first station within Île-de-France proper, it’s only a 20 min ride.

At the other end, you can also get off at Boigneville, the last station before Malesherbes, which is in Île-de-France. The ride between Boigneville and Malesherbes is also short - and, once you leave the Essonne valley, flat as a pancake.

The advantage of starting and stopping short is that the price of the ticket for a journey wholly within IDF is capped at 6€ until the end of the Olympics and at 5€ afterwards.

I can’t find the actual price of the Paris-Malesherbes ticket, but I’m sure it’s more than 10€.

 

[BRX]

You're gonna need to wait until getting to Orry, those fares are quite specific.

And you're going to want to avoid using a TER branded machine, because those would probably sell you on the TER service going to Paris Nord.

Thanks.

Is there any way of finding out in advance what the fare is going to be? Will it be point-to-point or a zonal one?

Malesherbes & Orry seem to exist in a kind of limbo land that is neither Ile-de-France nor covered by the TER regions.

 

[SHD]

That’s the exact description, limboland.

 

[BRX]

Yes, these fares to stations outside Île-de-France that are only served by RER or Transilien trains (Malesherbes, Gisors, and a few others) are a real mess.

Since you’ll be on your bike, you can save a bit though.
First, how do you plan to reach Orry-la-Ville? The station is deep in the middle of the Chantilly forest. Anyway, you can literally cycle along the mainline until you reach Survilliers-Fosses, the first station within Île-de-France proper, it’s only a 20 min ride.

At the other end, you can also get off at Boigneville, the last station before Malesherbes, which is in Île-de-France. The ride between Boigneville and Malesherbes is also short - and, once you leave the Essonne valley, flat as a pancake.

The advantage of starting and stopping short is that the price of the ticket for a journey wholly within IDF is capped at 6€ until the end of the Olympics and at 5€ afterwards.

I can’t find the actual price of the Paris-Malesherbes ticket, but I’m sure it’s more than 10€.

We'll arrive in Orry on a TER train from Amiens.

Alternative would be to stay on that until Gare du Nord and switch to the RER there - but I fancied the idea of changing trains with bikes at a quiet peripheral station rather than the GdN.

At the other end, we want to get as far south as possible as will be cycling onwards with limited time, so do want to get to Malesherbes.

 

[SHD]

The fare to Malesherbes is impossible to find online, but I suspect it’s somewhere in the 15€ range. Since the fare to Boigneville is 5€, I suspect that the number of passengers who actually pay the full fare to Malesherbes is ridiculously small.

I understand that you want to cycle as quickly as possible but as the local de l’étape, I think my solution is quite preferable. I’m not even sure that you can buy a through ticket from Orry to Malesherbes.

 

[SHD]

Besides, remember that you’ll need to change trains at Corbeil-Essonnes to reach Malesherbes - the Corbeil-Malesherbes branch has been transformed into a shuttle a few years back, there are no more direct trains from Paris.

 

[Hadders]

This all seems rather complicated! I keep geting told that railway ticketing in France is simple. At least in Britain you can buy a ticket from any station or ticketing website from anywhere to anywhere.

While not perfect, I think I'd rather our way of doing things.

 

[BRX]

Besides, remember that you’ll need to change trains at Corbeil-Essonnes to reach Malesherbes - the Corbeil-Malesherbes branch has been transformed into a shuttle a few years back, there are no more direct trains from Paris.

Yup, am aware of that.

Paying an extra €10 to gain the extra time at the other end is not a problem. If it's possible that we will get to Orry and find that we can't actually buy a through fare though - that would be an issue, if it meant getting on and off the train somewhere in central paris.

 

[SHD]

Ticketing in France is a mess (I have no idea who keeps telling you that ticketing in France is simple…) and to be honest the topic of those limbo land stations is the mess within the mess. However, most of these stations’ patronage will be commuters with very specific season tickets and, in the case of Malesherbes, a sizeable proportion of fare evaders.

 

[signed]

Ticketing in France is a mess

In most cases, it is not, except outside some weird stations like that

 

[BRX]

I keep geting told that railway ticketing in France is simple.

It really isn't!

One of the silliest things is that all the TER regions have separate websites. Booking a journey across 3 TER regions, including bike reservations, took me quite some time & confusion yesterday.

 

[signed]

Booking a journey across 3 TER regions, including bike reservations, took me quite some time & confusion yesterday.

The recommendation would be to just use SNCF Connect for the passengers and then get your bike reservations separately, Despite being horrible, it handles that well at least and allows you to have all the ticket in one app.

Multiple websites because TER is just a name now, it isn't centrally managed by SNCF as it used to be.

 

[BRX]

The recommendation would be to just use SNCF Connect and then get your bike reservations separately

I found that I couldn't tell SNCF connect to only show TER trains.

In fact I asked about this on my other thread...

 

[SHD]

In most cases, it is not, except outside some weird stations like that

I’m sorry, but since the introduction of « Liberté Tarifaire », it really is, at least for journeys that cross a regional border or involve a combination of SLO (services librement organisés - trains that run under market conditions and are not subsidised, that is to say TGVs, Ouigos, certain Intercités) and TER trains.

 

[signed]

I’m sorry, but since the introduction of « Liberté Tarifaire », it really is.

Then I don't know.

I was able to buy a Dol-De-Bretagne-Paris via Granville in one unique transaction on SNCF connect (which does include 3 trains). I can easily buy a Brest to Hendaye (via Nantes) wholly on TER and Intercités (4 trains at the minimum) in one transaction as well

Maybe some regions are different. My current region (Bretagne) has this really easy, even for forays in the Pays de la Loire.

 

[SHD]

Yes, you can generally buy such tickets, but there is a mess of fares and even railcards that are region-specific. In addition, a TGV + TER journey will almost always result in two different tickets/QR-codes. And I’m not even speaking of tickets bought through travel agencies - I.e. the vast majority of business travel.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I was surprised to find there were no through tickets from Orléans to CDG airport (Roissyrail, RER B).
It needs a ticket to Austerlitz and then on RER/Metro to CDG.
I could buy the first via SNCF Connect, but had to queue up at chaotic Austerlitz and fight an ATM for a paper ticket (with the CDG option not being easily found) on RATP.
This, and similar across the wider Paris region, must surely be a very common journey.

Actually there was an Orléans-CDG through fare on SNCF, but it involved changing trains between various routes, finishing at the CDG TGV station.
That's only possible a few times a day, and is slow and tricky with the changes involved.

 

[signed]

I was surprised to find there were no through tickets from Orléans to CDG airport (Roissyrail, RER B).

IDFM (Ile de France Mobilités, the transport authority of Paris) has a nearly totally independent system (as they only run two or three very low volume trains outside of the region and most trains from the other regions are direct to a Termini). The rest of the trains are ran by SNCF. There is VERY little cooperation between the long distance/TER branches of TER and the networks.

And the fare system would make such combined tickets impossible in the region (no notion of e-tickets, no tapping out...)

With the arrival of mobile tickets, it is becoming easier to do such things as you can just load a ticket or a pass directly to your phone not having to deal with the queues, but I agree this could be much easier.

 

[island]

With the arrival of mobile tickets, it is becoming easier to do such things as you can just load a ticket or a pass directly to your phone not having to deal with the queues, but I agree this could be much easier.

It’s still not possible to have a single or return ticket for the trains outside zone 1 and there does not seem to be any plans to change that.

 

[signed]

It’s still not possible to have a single or return ticket for the trains outside zone 1 and there does not seem to be any plans to change that.

If you want a return to Z5 and stay for a few days, is almost always more fare-efficient to get the a Weekly Navigo Pass for €30.50 as it's all zones, includes the whole week and the airport buses. Especially for CDG where a return on RER B is only €7 cheaper and a return or a express RoissyBus return is actually more expensive than a week pass (€33.20).

If you want to get the Metro Line 14 from Orly, it is by far better to get a Z1-4 day pass for €14 instead of paying the €10.80 Line 14 specific ticket because it gives the whole day for €4 (2 singles).

 

[island]

If you want a return to Z5 and stay for a few days, is almost always more fare-efficient to get the a Weekly Navigo Pass for €30.50 as it's all zones, includes the whole week and the airport buses.

A return from Z1 to Z5 other than airport stations is €10 (€12 at the moment with the olympic surcharge) so unless I’m misunderstanding something I can’t conceive of a weekly ticket being better.

 

[BRX]

If anyone's interested... This is what we were sold at Orry.
There were only TER ticket machines, which didn't recognise Malesherbes as a destination so we asked at the ticket window. It was clear this wasn't a frequently requested journey!

We were allowed to stay on the train through GDN using this combination.

(Photo is of a single to GDN at €8 and then another ticket at €15.70 covering the remainder of the journey).