The gesture of compulsory validation is sometimes less well understood in the case of passes, insofar as "bona fide" users have difficulty perceiving what this gesture brings to fares whose duration and scope of validity are already written in the Navigo card, and can easily be read during the ticket control operations carried out by the operators.
Systematic validation as input to the networks, regardless of the title, nevertheless responds to two legitimate concerns of Île-de-France Mobilités (formerly STIF) and carriers:
- the encouragement to travel in order by systematizing control,
- the collection of traffic data to adapt the transport offer to needs.
Encourage all travellers to travel in good standing
Validation allows the traveller to ensure that he or she is in good standing (a red cross and a characteristic "beep" from the validator warn him or her otherwise); This verification makes sense in particular when users make non-usual bus journeys for which they are not sure that they are covered by the areas of validity of their pass, or to warn distracted pass holders if necessary that their season ticket has expired and that they must renew it to travel in good standing on the networks.
At the same time, validation also allows the driver of the vehicle to ensure that the traveler who validates is in good standing.
Finally, the fact that all legal passengers, whether or not they are season ticket holders, make a gesture of validation creates a favourable environment for all users to be encouraged, by pressure from their peers, to buy a ticket and validate it. This helps to reduce "soft fraud".
Collect traffic data to adapt the transport offer to needs
The validation of electronic ticketing tickets also allows Île-de-France Mobilités and carriers to collect statistical data that can be used to assess usage, know traffic and adjust the transport offer.
This statistical data from the validations is thus complementary to the traffic information provided by the counting surveys or the door sensors with which buses and trams are equipped:
- They make it possible to know the legal traffic (unlike sensors and counting surveys which do not distinguish between fraudsters and regular passengers).
- They provide an analytical vision of traffic (knowledge of the fares used by passengers), which is possible with counting surveys but not with sensors. Validation data have, compared to counting surveys, the big advantage of giving access to a dynamic vision over time.
- They make it possible to reconstruct the routes and movements of the passes (it being understood that several successive stages of anonymization make it impossible to make the link between a pass number and the identity of its bearer). This opens up many perspectives for analysis (for example: feeders to a station, flows within a large intermodal hub, variations in peak hours depending on the location, etc.) useful for improving service to users.
User validation data is also used in the context of contracts between Île-de-France Mobilités and operators to interest transport companies in traffic, and thus encourage them to implement the necessary measures to increase the number of passengers on their lines.