Behind the end of the Rail Pass, the headache of young people for cheap journeys

Hiking bag slung over his shoulders, hiking boots hanging by their laces, phone charger in hand, Thomas desperately scours the Paris Bercy bus station in search of a power outlet. He's about to embark on more than eleven hours of night bus travel, so "it's better to be prepared," says the 24-year-old from Dijon.

With his girlfriend Jade, they're far from finished with their journey. Having left Dijon by TER in the middle of the afternoon for the Gare d'Austerlitz in Paris, here they are, at 7 p.m., in the concrete cave of Bercy in front of a string of coaches, each more colorful than the last, waiting for the one in which they'll spend the night heading to Lourdes. Arrival scheduled for 7:25 a.m., "the perfect time to continue the first day of walking in the Pyrenees," Jade tries to convince herself. The cost of the bus trip: 40 euros per person for more than 800 km of asphalt. A TGV Dijon-Lourdes, "wasn't even an option," Thomas sweeps away. "It was double that, we would have already blown our weekly budget."

Last summer, their journeys were even more disjointed, but above all, more economical. They were among the 235,000 young people aged 16 to 27 who had subscribed to the short-lived Pass Rail, a monthly subscription for 49 euros that allowed young people unlimited travel on regional TER lines and Intercités trains in July and August 2024.

The couple from Dijon had thus joined Puy-en-Velay by TER, after