While many Parisians are worried about transport in the capital during the Olympic Games, Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) is trying to reassure people about the current situation. The regularity and punctuality of Ile-de-France transport improved in January even if several metro and RER lines are “still in difficulty” according to a press release published this Thursday. 140 days before the sporting competition, the public transport organizing authority in the Paris region believes that “the measures put in place by operators are starting to have visible results for travelers”.
In January, “the recovery of the lines continues to progress well in general on the RER and trains, some lines are however still in difficulty”, while the metro is “increasingly regular, but with some lines still in difficulty “, she says. As part of the contracts concluded with operators, IDFM imposes objectives in terms of punctuality and regularity – measured each month. “When they are not achieved, financial penalties are demanded from operators and a reimbursement campaign is automatically put in place to compensate travelers,” explains the authority. For the metro, IDFM measures regularity during peak hours, “that is to say the percentage of trains which have run in relation to the number of trains in the offer ordered by IDFM”. For commuter trains and RERs, IDFM measures punctuality, “i.e. the percentage of travelers arriving on time”.
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Thus, in the metro, lines 3, 6, 8, 12 and 13 “are those which do not meet the objectives set by IDFM” with 84%, 86%, 82%, 87% and 84% respectively. The lack of drivers “remains a major cause” of the difficulties and “line by line action plans have been put in place for rapid corrections”, underlines the press release. “With 91, 94 and 97.5% regularity respectively, lines 7, 4 and 9 are close to meeting their objectives.” In addition to the two automatic lines 1 and 14 as well as line 5 “which exceed 100% regularity”, lines 2, 10 and 11 “are close to 100%”, according to the authority.
On the RER side, A “is generally close to the objectives” and E “has very satisfactory results”. The B is however “still in difficulty, but performance is improving”, while for the RER C and D “the difficulties persist” particularly on two lines. Concerning trains, “all lines have satisfactory punctuality”, even if lines P and R “present fragile results in January” and the Nanterre Université/Cergy le Haut axis of line L “has poor results”.