Torrential rains fell in Île-de-France on Sunday and the region was placed on yellow alert on Monday. Exceptional climatic events which are nevertheless tending to become the norm and which are unfortunately the cause of numerous disruptions in public transport in the Ile-de-France region. “Very bad weather” in the words of Clément Beaune, who announced on Europe 1 on Monday that several lines, first and foremost the RER A, were still disrupted at the start of the week, due to “tarpaulins falling on the catenaries” or even “trunks of trees that have fallen on the tracks”. How to explain that dozens of RER, Transilien and even metro lines, partly underground, are disrupted due to a storm? How can we prevent these disturbances from multiplying in the future?
“That there are hazards of this type from time to time is life. The problem is not that. The problem is to see how fragile it is everywhere. It is the accumulation that challenges (…) yesterday the whole network was on the ground”, is moved Arnaud Bertrand, the president of the association of users Plus de Trains, which ensures that almost all of the lines RER and Transilien were concerned on Sunday. He is worried about these meteorological phenomena which “will probably be more frequent tomorrow”. “Has everything been thought out to invest more if needed? Has everything been thought out to always ensure that the network will withstand temperature variations or stronger wind gusts than before? A “very technical subject” according to him. This representative of public transport users in the Ile-de-France evokes “two subjects”: that of the electrical fragility of the network and that of poorly cleared trees.
On the SNCF Réseau side, we retort that it was a question of “exceptional circumstances” on Sunday, climatic hazards as it certainly happens more and more often but which were there combined with a “multitude of events which would not have been easy to anticipate in (our) daily practices”. And to recall that the Ile-de-France network was far from being the only one concerned by the violence of these storms, since all of France suffered disturbances. And this, moreover, “not only on the railway”. With “very reactive” on-call teams that can be mobilized 24 hours a day “who have struggled” throughout the territory to restore traffic as quickly as possible, SNCF Réseau denies that poor maintenance of the tracks is at the origin of these disturbances. Thus cutting short the accusations of certain user associations.
More broadly, SNCF Réseau explains that it is adapting “to climate change” in particular via “regeneration of the network”. Concretely, it is in particular a question of “replacing old components with new generation components, better suited to large temperature differentials (rails, switch cores, catenaries, etc.). Operations “whose annual investment amounts have doubled in eight years, to reach 800 million euros”. And because rejuvenating the 7000 km of tracks is “a long-term job”, the group affirms that “the resilience of the network also depends on careful monitoring and maintenance”, with the “change of certain rails in anticipation of the season hot”, “strengthening drainage (cleaning the roads, editor’s note)” or even “monitoring changes in the terrain”.
At the RATP, another operator of the rail network in the region, we say we are less “affected” by bad weather than the SNCF, insofar as most of the network is underground. However, many videos posted on social networks show flooded metro stations – such as Balard (line 8) or Porte de Pantin (line 5) – and shed light on the network’s vulnerability to climatic hazards. Asked about this, the group explains that “the two essential challenges for the RATP are to ensure the highest possible level of service in compliance with safety principles” and “to protect its infrastructures as well as the rolling stock which could suffer serious damage, the restoration of which would be costly”.
So that “in the event of flooding of part of the network due to heavy rain”, the RATP can proceed “to the temporary stoppage of the circulation of trains if certain switches and crossings are flooded” and “at the temporary closure of certain stations or stations, and of some of their accesses on the lines with connections (…) if the conditions of access to the platforms are not secure and present a dangerous character for travellers”. Finally, the Paris transport authority explains that it can decide not to serve certain “flooded” stations or stations if these are evacuated and closed to travelers.
How to prevent such disturbances from happening again? It is again Clément Beaune who answers the question most directly, explaining on Europe 1 on Monday that we had to “reinvest in our rail network, especially in Île-de-France” and “open new, more robust lines”, like the Grand Paris Express, this super metropolitan metro currently under construction. “Long-term” investments that should be associated with other “short-term” investments with – among other things – “the replacement of rails that are cracking” or “that are too old to withstand the high heat “. In addition, the Minister Delegate for Transport believes that beyond “technical problems”, we must “do better and faster” in particular “on information and support for travelers”. In this, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games must be “an accelerator”, he said.
