2023-11-22 22:46:09
INFOGRAPHICS – The appointment of the former prime minister at the head of the Parisian administration had raised hope among metro and RER users. Twelve months later, Le Figaro draws up an initial assessment.
On November 23, 2022, when Jean Castex – best known for being Emmanuel Macron’s former prime minister – officially took the helm of the RATP, public transport users in the Ile-de-France region sighed with relief. Everyone sees in this political figure the emergency exit from a situation that has become untenable on a daily basis for them since Covid. And that’s an understatement as the files to be managed are heavy to bear, between recruitment problems, social tensions within the company and a still limited transport offer. But the new CEO’s shoulders seem broad enough to achieve this. A year later, many actions have been put in place and the situation has gradually improved, with a major recruitment plan which is bearing fruit, but the fact remains that a certain number of problems, particularly on the metro and bus networks.
And the first to complain are none other than the users themselves, many on social networks calling out the RATP on the problems they encounter on a daily basis, leaving scathing messages accompanied by evocative photos. Line closures, repeated incidents or even extended waiting times… ““Take public transportation!” scold us those who never take them“, complains this user of lines 8 and 10. “What more can be said ? Oh yes, I broke a record this morning by taking 1h50 to do République-Pont de Garigliano», writes another. “If line 8 is not disrupted every day in November, it will self-destruct, right? Fed up with all these problems», annoys a third. And many wonder about the quality of service that will be offered to them during the Olympics. “RATP is not able to operate the lines correctly in normal times. Imagine the situation for the Olympic Games», Launches the latter. “The machine is a little stuck», summarizes Arnaud Bertrand, the president of the Plus de trains association.
Concretely, if we stick to the punctuality figures published in open data by Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the margin for progress between September 2022 and September 2023 appears quite minimal. Only the fully automatic lines (1 and 14) as well as lines 2, 5 and 9 – i.e. five lines out of the fourteen in the network – have achieved the objectives set by IDFM in September. A year ago, only lines 1, 2, 5, 10 and 14 as well as the RER A reached the objectives. For example, line 6 had the lowest punctuality rate in the network, at 84.3%, in September 2022 and failed to transform the test a year later, since the rate remains unchanged . Others have nevertheless seen their performance improve: this is particularly the case for line 4, whose automation is almost complete. If its performance rate was 86.5% in September 2022, it was 93.42% in September 2023.
Read alsoJean Castex plays appeasement at the RATP
Difficulties since September
Opposite, the RATP defends itself as best it can, explaining that it is going through a pass “difficile», and this, in particular because of the “increase in abandoned packages“. The Autonomous Authority even puts forward the figure of “70% growth in abandoned packages» compared to last year, with 325 reports and interventions linked to this phenomenon in October, compared to 190 a year ago. She also mentioned “other difficulties» including the dilapidated network infrastructure, citing line 8 equipped with equipment “who is 25, 30 years old“. On this line, the performance rate during peak hours has completely fallen in one year, going from 88.3% in September 2022 to 84.85% in September 2023. And if at the RATP, we especially explain that comparing the figures from 2022 to those of 2023 “has no sense“, Insofar as “there are more trains contractually» today than at the time, we still note that the metro production level increased from 94.6% to 95.8% between September 2022 and September 2023.
RATP assures that a lot has been done internally, with a recruitment plan which has already made it possible to hire 4,200 people in 2023 out of a target of 4,600. But it concedes that there are maintenance problems: “we have modern lines with effective signaling on lines 1, 2, 5 and 14 on which there are fewer incidents and fewer breakdowns and there are the old cuckoos like line 12 on which the MF67 trains run, who are over 50 years old“. So far, “we knew how to maintain and maintain the trains but today, we lack renewal», Continues the Parisian Régie. Today, certain lines therefore appear “difficult» such as the very long line 8 or the line 6 currently being modernized, on which two types of equipment are currently running, making it “more complicated to operate». «The reality is that this year we have improved’one point our production with last year, but that the offer proposed is much greater. The number of trains running every day is much greater», insists the RATP.
A letter from Valérie Pécresse
Despite these ongoing modernizations and investments to renew the equipment already made, it is clear that in recent weeks, the situation even seems to have deteriorated further. Between August and September 2023, peak hour performance on all 14 lines fell, and while the latest figures have not been released, the results are no better in October and November. So much so that Valérie Pécresse wrote a letter to Jean Castex on November 7, asking him to “consolidate the expected improvement dynamic“. If the president of the region and Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) notes “with satisfaction the results for the month of September showing production rates during peak hours and overall respectively of 93.82% and 96%, an improvement compared to the month of June“, she deplores that this trajectory has “declined in October with results in a clear decline».
She cites in particular the production of lines 3 and 7 and especially 6, 8 and 13, “which fell to less than 90%», «well below IDFM’s expectations“, and that “generated the expression of numerous dissatisfactions on the part of users». «In September, there are nine lines that are doing much better than in 2022, but there are still five lines that are not there.», confirms Laurent Probst. For the president of IDFM, “the real causes» of this degradation of service resides mainly in “driver absenteeism“, while “all jobs are filled“. He also mentions “some maintenance problems on the rolling stock” as well as “pure operating problems” with a “subject of internal organization”. “The causes are multiple, which is why we asked for an action plan on each of the five lines, the RATP is working on it», Launched Laurent Probst.
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