blackmons

I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out the ratp site and thought I understood it, but now I'm confused. On the advice of someone on these boards, I printed off a whole bunch of routes, including the maps for departure, duration, and destination. I'm not leaving until the end of June, but thought I would get a jump on it. I just picked random days of the week and times thinking it would apply for when I'm there, but now I'm starting to have my doubts. I printed off a separate schedule for a Sunday when I'm planning on going to Luxembourg Gardens and the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery I accidentally noticed that depending on the hour of the day (11:00 a.m. noon, 12:00 p.m., etc.) I would come up with different time estimations, different stations, and even different line numbers. Since I won't know the exact hour or even which day I will want to catch a bus, does that make it impossible to plan ahead of time? I know some sites are probably more predictable and dependable than others Do you understand what I'm trying to say? I like the idea of going armed with maps that are clear and easy to read and understand.
Any advice?
Thanks,
Laurie

Sarastro

Have you considered the possibility that you are over-planning the transportation options? Maintenance, holidays, weekends, and time of day all might affect what line, at any given time, might be getter than another in reaching your destination.

You do not need a lot of maps or route options. The entrance of each métro station has all of the required route planning information. There are even apps that allow you to place maps on your smartphone.

Effectively, this is really the only map you need:

http://www.ratp.fr/informer/pdf/orie...secteur&fm=pdf

StCirq

I totally agree. Of course, just like in any metropolitan transport system, rush hours, anticipated construction and attendant delays, déviations that cause re-routing, holidays, weekends, and plenty of other things would make it impossible for the ratp to have a definite predetermined schedule for every line.

Toss the printouts. You seriously won't need them, and I'm guessing they will just add to your frustration on the ground. There is no need to get granular about Paris transport. Just go to a station or bus stop, wait for the next métro or bus to arrive, get on, and go. Give yourself plenty of time to get to wherever you're going.

Ackislander

We'll, I am halfway between these two positions. I am not a fanatic pre planner , but I do like to know how to get from here to there.

The RATP site is hard because it has so many features. And the best route anywhere does vary by time of day and day of the week. Not all the buses run on Sundays and holidays

I am in Paris right now. I don't know what I am going to do today, but if I go to the Institute du Monde Arabe, the RATP offers me a route by Metro that is not convenient, a route by bus that is fast but requires 14 minutes of walking, or a slow bus route with only one change that delivers me to the door. It is slow because it goes through all kinds of interesting places, so it is the one I would choose.

I have used public transportation at home and abroad for 40 years, so this is not a big issue but it might be if I had lived somewhere that middle class people don't use buses.

Avalon2

MOst bus stops have a display of when the next bus arrives< I use the buses almost exclusively
and the only problem arises when they have a "pertubation" you will have to get off your bus and wait for the next one. I don;t quite understand what a pertubation is but it is easy to deal with .

Ackislander

Sometimes the perturbation has been that it is time for the driver' s coffee break. I am not joking.

StCirq

Perturbation means the same in English as in French. It's a "disruption," and yes, it can be serious or totally mundane.

jan47ete

We were just in Paris an I am an anal, detailed, how to get from here to there, when is it open and closed, bring a calendar on a 81/2 x11 sheet with 1-inch square sticky notes with site info attached that can be moved to another day if needed!

Have always found the metros easier tried the buses. Site info usually indicates metro and buses that go there and at bus stations there are usually maps, so really is fairly easy.

If you might feel more comfortable, I can send you a large metro map, metro tickets and a floor plan of the Louvre. Email me a [email protected] if interested. Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask either.

blackmons

Hmmm....a calendar with sticky notes. Love that idea. Yes, I am very anal. But that's because I have no sense of direction, no instincts, and am not a "fly by the seat of my pants" type person, though I wish I was. I need good maps and lots of information. I'm not worried as much about the metro, but I've read that the bus stops can be tricky to find, and that's the mode of transport that I'm most looking forward to taking. The printed map is fine, but it doesn't show where the stops are specifically. So when I'm someplace where I have absolutely no idea where I am, it's not really going to help me. That's why I like the ratp website. it gives detailed maps of where the stops are. I was just surprised that the information would vary so much hour to hour. But now I know so I'll be prepared for that.
Thanks so much, Jan, for your generous offer. Where did you get your large metro map? That's another issue. I need something that I can read easily, not some tiny little thing. Hope you had a wonderful trip!
Laurie

Christina

YOu don't need timetables at all for metros or buses, but why would it surprise you that the number of runs and how far apart they are can vary by time of day or day of week? All buses in cities are that way, even in the US. Buses aren't as frequent at night or weekends, often, and some of them stop at 8-9 pm, or don't run on some days. It isn't hour by hour, it is generally blocks of time during the day for several hours that the estimates they give change (ie, every 10 minutes from 9 am to 3 pm, every 8 minutes from 3 pm to 8 pm, etc.).

Bus stops are not tricky to find they aren't hidden, they have signs and bus shelters, just like most places. Of course if you have a route you want to take, you would have no idea what bus might go there, so you need to look at a bus map with all the lines to get an idea of the routes, that's all.

So I do think it is fine to have a map of the lines you want to take often, I do that also.

You can get a large bus map from a metro clerk, but it still doesn't show as detailed locations as those individual line maps. It's online, I suspect that is what jan47ete is referring to, not sure. If you really plan on taking the bus a whole lot and want to be prepared for anything, you can buy a small booklet of all those bus line maps in a French bookstore, maybe 5-10 euro. And then it has the overview map, but small, of course. You just have to be able to figure out by looking at it what the major streets are, they are shown. The map shown by sarastro above is just the metro map, not buses.

YOu can ask a metro clerk for a big map showing the bus lines and see what you get. I had a really detailed one they gave out which I still keep but it was maybe 5-10 years ago. The ones I've gotten from them recently aren't quite as specific on showing the lines and stop locations.

I like the buses sometimes, but sometimes they are going to be a lot slower than the metro if traffic is bad.

Ackislander

We took the RER from the 14th to Gare du Nord this morning because it is very fast at rush hour.

Then we took the 48 bus to Parc des Buttes Chaumont. It goes to the top of the Parc with no changes. We then walked to the Canal St Martin to see the neighborhood and because no bus really goes where we wanted to go.

We followed the canal to J.P. Timbaud and caught our favorite bus, the 96, all the way to the Gare du Montparnasse. It was a great ride because school wasn't out yet, so the bus wasn't crowded. Then we walked back to the apartment.

My point? In an average Dayaks a tourist, you will need to travel by lots of different modes. I have always used a print bus guide like Christina describes, but the print is somehow shrinking. So I am experimenting with downloading routes from the RATP app to my iPad Mini. So far, so good, but I still haven't figured out how to make the addresses and places function work in the "journeys" module. But someday I will!

MaineGG

I find this interactive RATP transit map really useful when checking out options for traveling around the city:

http://www.ratp.fr/plan-interactif/carteidf.php?lang=uk

Using the map in conjunction with this itinerary planning page, it's usually easy to figure out how to get from place to place:

http://www.ratp.fr/itineraires/en/ra...herche-avancee