Mess on the network. Some users had to be patient at the start of the week in the Paris metro, while numerous slowdowns as well as signaling failures largely disrupted train traffic, particularly on lines 2, 6, 12 and 13. “Major difficulties” due to the closure of line 14, according to the users association Plus de Trains, which launched calls for testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday to identify the number of users concerned. Many of them expressed their anger on social networks.
Among them, a user explains, for example, having experienced a “problematic” journey which began at 8:42 a.m. Tuesday morning at Bel Air station, “with eight minutes of waiting in an armored metro to Denfert, where the platform was literally black people”. “A horror again this morning, (line) 13 towards Saint-Denis is a cattle truck. The trains are slowed down because they have difficulty closing the doors,” adds this other user. “Line 13 is obviously extremely busy, which demonstrates the usefulness of line 14. Didn’t the RATP anticipate that there would still be people there during the first week of the All Saints’ Day holidays?” , asks a third.
In question ? The closure – although planned and announced for a long time – of line 14 until November 5, causing numerous transfers to other lines. Particularly on line 13 and on the RER A. “It is not at all the same to close on All Saints’ Day as during August 1 to 10, (…) and there, it is clear that the metro network is much less robust with line 14 closed because it is a line that has a lot of capacity and it is lacking,” explains Arnaud Bertrand, president of the Plus de Trains association.
The user representative nevertheless claims to have shared his fears and concerns well in advance with Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the public transport organizing authority, and to have called for a strengthening of line 13 to rebalance this lack. “But the 13 was not reinforced as it should have been, just like the RER A which finds itself saturated between Gare de Lyon and Châtelet, in its part parallel to line 14,” he continues. He believes that “perhaps we should have closed only the second week of the school holidays”. “No one warned that users would have to struggle so much for the line to be ready for the Olympics,” he finally says.
For its part, IDFM put pressure on Monday so that the offer could be strengthened. “We asked them to put a maximum capacity offer on line 13 throughout the holidays, that means a metro frequency every 95 seconds, but they failed to put it in place and respect the order », explained the authority on Wednesday, also demanding that “passenger information be accentuated and reinforced to inform of the closure of line 14” and “specify the substitution offer”. Because if RATP assures, for its part, that it has provided the necessary means to strengthen its network, for IDFM, the account is not there.
Aware of the inconvenience, the RATP assures for its part that it is only “punctual” and that agents had been positioned at key positions, to “channel” and avoid crowd movements. However, Tuesday got off to a bad start on the network with a series of hiccups added to the closure of line 14. “We had to manage a few incidents,” defends the group, listing a “damage to equipment on line 13, abandoned luggage on lines 3 and 9, a signaling problem on line 6 and equipment damage on the RER A”… So many small breakdowns “which generated occasional disruptions in certain places on the network”.
All these incidents “were resolved in the morning”, underlines the group. “We are aware that the closure of line 14 has an impact on our passengers. This is why we favor school holidays to carry out these long traffic interruptions”, the RATP further justifies, adding that “alternative routes via other metro lines, RER or buses are offered” as well as “ a replacement M14 bus is being put in place between Gare de Lyon and Olympiades.”
Furthermore, the Parisian management counters that “communication campaigns” were carried out, with “the distribution of flyers”, “station displays” and other “sound announcements”. And this, “well in advance so that our travelers can be informed and make their arrangements”. Other closures are also “planned in the coming months”, “essential to carry out all the trials and tests of the new train operating system before the opening of the extension of line 14 in mid-2024” at Orly to the south and to Saint-Denis Pleyel to the north.
In addition, the group recalls that line 14 is closed “in order to carry out tests of the trains and tests of the new train control system” which will be “deployed on the existing line and on the extended line in order to accommodate a million passengers per day in 2024” and “will allow the line to be operated down to an interval of 80 seconds between each train”. The renewal of the automatic piloting system on the existing line is in fact “an essential step in the commissioning of the extensions”, and was carried out “without major interruption of operations”. “A world first,” boasts the RATP.
