Authors: Heba Attia Mousa and Noor Alam, ICLEI – Photos: RATP 

This is the story of one bus depot in Paris that shares the building with the Ministry of Interior, a kindergarten, a school, and local shops. In March 2023, ICLEI- sustainable mobility department accompanied a TUMI E-bus mission city network delegation from Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil on a visit to the Bus Depot of Lagny in Paris, France, and learned about the latest innovations in planning and operations. Here, we share our key takeaways.

Mixed-uses, maximum benefits

When the Parisian transport operator RATP got the task to rehabilitate and expand a bus depot in Paris Centre de Lagny, automation and electrification were not the only mobility innovations. RATP considered how to efficiently use the highly-valued Parisian urban space by planning a mixed-use development. The vast space needed to expand bus parking and charging stations was allocated to underground storeys. Meanwhile, above ground rises a visually-striking building that houses administrative offices for RATP and third-party organisations (now occupied by the Ministry of Interior), a kindergarten, a school, and local shops. Blending these different uses into a tiered land project creates value, doing more with less.

The bus depot is part of a bigger mixed-use development project. Photo: RATP

The space-saving principle also continues underground in the bus parking area. Buses charge overnight, while they operate during the day and leave 3 floors of parking spaces behind. This is a valuable space that RATP, in cooperation with Île-de-France Mobilités and private logistics operators, converts to a cargo-mobility consolidation centre during the day. Trucks and cargo bikes are allowed to access the bus parking facility during certain hours, shift the cargo loads headed towards the inner city to smaller parcels and load them on cargo bikes.

This is a great example of innovative mixed-land use and an excellent ecologistics practice where all parties are winners. Parisian citizens will enjoy their city and get their orders delivered with minimal emissions, noise and visual disturbance from the trucks. The private cargo operators can cut operational costs while having access to a highly equipped parking facility that works well for cargo bikes and is available during the peak time of their operations. RATP, in return, gets to earn extra revenue from otherwise unused space.

Vacant bus parking is used as an ecologistics consolidation area during the day. Photo: RATP

The road towards energy transition in public transport

The Lagny bus centre can house 184 buses and has 80 additional parking spaces and 7 maintenance areas in the workshop. The 12m long, fully-electrical buses have automated parking capabilities to optimise available parking space and support bus drivers through advanced driving assistance systems. The buses can hold 100 passengers at any given time and can be charged overnight in less than 4 hours.
This initiative is part of the RATP’s Bus Electrification Plan 2025 for Paris. It aims to remove diesel-powered buses from the Paris region network and replace them with a fully ecologically-friendly fleet by 2025. The fleet will feature fully electric and hybrid-powered buses that run on biomethane, renewable fuel from agricultural residues or biowaste. This will allow RATP to reduce GHG emissions by 20% and the RATP carbon balance by 50% (RATP, 2018). 
This technological advancement is set to add immense economic and environmental value to the city with a reduced fuel demand and a 15-60% reduction in energy demand for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems for the buses (CORDIS EU, 2018). This will also promote mixed land-use development necessary for environmentally conscious urban development.
In dense cities, urban space is a hard currency, and any plot of land has contested uses to be filled with, from workplaces, housing, education, mobility spaces or city life. Parked buses, in this context, will not be welcomed in the middle of the city’s urban fabric. However, bus operators and cities’ mobility departments can cooperate to find innovative solutions. Centre Bus de Lagny provides an exemplary case study for other cities and operators on economic, technological and environmental levels.

Lagny bus depot in Paris. Photo credit: RATP