Following a competitive tender process, French city Rennes Metropole has renewed the contract with Keolis as the operator of its public transport network for the next seven years. The new public service delegation contract will start on 1 January 2018 and generate cumulative revenue of EUR 960 million.
The new contract is focused mainly on making new mobility services available to passengers. In addition to the existing metro line, bus and Handistar reduced mobility services already operated by Keolis, the new contract will also include the management of a second metro line, multiple bike-share and rental schemes, and real-time car sharing.
The current metro line, measuring 8.5 km and serving 15 stations, manages an average of 310,000 passenger journeys every day. In order to respond to the growing population of the region, Rennes Metropole wants to add a second metro line measuring 14km, which is expected to be launched in 2020. With a speed of 37km/h and able to carry 179 passengers per carriage, the line is expected to carry an average of 113,000 passengers per day. Together, the two lines operated by Keolis will manage 60% of overall passenger traffic on the STAR network.
Keolis and Rennes Metropole will also introduce a new mobile app, STARMobilités, in March 2018. The new app brings together all transport information with other city-related information such as movie times, weather forecasts, and traffic updates.
And from 2019, a new ticketing system will be introduced. Building on the technology from the Korrigo multi-service transport card in Brittany, France, the new system in Rennes will reduce fare evasion via the installation of ticket gates for the metro, and the transition from paper to contactless ticketing and new NFC or open payment technology.
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