Cooperative efforts between the various public transport stakeholders in Bordeaux have helped improve connections between travel modes and facilitated their use for travellers.
P great deal of work has been carried out in the Bordeaux region to connect different modes of transport and allow for a more flexible implementation of mobility solutions. This has largely been possible thanks to effective collaboration between the different public transit stakeholders, such as the Aquitaine region, the department of Gironde, the Urban Community of Bordeaux (CUB) and the transport operator Keolis.
One initiative that has arisen from that collaboration is the Modalis card, which allows travellers to use a single transport pass across the entire TBC (Keolis). Card users are thus able to travel on every tram line, urban bus route, and hop aboard one of the city’s two river shuttles, without needing to subscribe to several different services. In addition, this ticketing system covers the use of park-and-rides and secure bike shelters. Subscription packages which include the TBC network and the network of the whole department, as well as the Regional Express Train or VCub bike-sharing scheme, are also available.
Meanwhile, connections have been bolstered by the creation of several multimodal hubs bringing together a large number of transport modes, with examples including the hubs at Quinconces in the city centre, Cenon, La Buttinière and near Saint-Jean railway station. Located in Lormont in the north-east of Bordeaux, for instance, the La Buttinière hub serves as a node for bus lines, tram line A, VCub bikes, park-and-rides and so on.
Elsewhere, a large amount of effort has been invested in the realm of passenger information. Three tools have been developed in particular, with the most recent being an information point set up at Quinconces this summer. This currently displays timetables for buses and trams and, in the future, is expected to incorporate information from every transport mode available in the region. The Quinconces information point is the first of its kind in Bordeaux, though around 40 more are due to be set up across the network by the end of the year.
Another tool that has been put at the public’s disposal is multimodal information aboard buses, which gives passengers real-time updates on the timetables of other bus routes and is expected, in the longer term, to incorporate details on the number of bikes available at Vcub stations. Lastly, 200 of the network’s 3,300 bus stops have been equipped with dynamic information screens displaying the times of the next buses. As for the remaining stops, they have been equipped with QR codes to allow passengers to access the same information via their smartphones.