The coronavirus epidemic keeps on spreading in France and even though limited, the RATP has its service continue during confinement. RATP president Catherine Guillouard has announced this morning that the Autonomous Parisian Transportation Administration will resume 75% of its traffic from May 11th. During a hearing at the Senate, Catherine Guillouard said that 85% of metros on line 13 will run and 100% of lines 1 and 14. By the way, on RER A and RER B, three trains in four are planned. And tramways will work between 80 and 100%.
Interviewed this May 4th on BFMTV, Secretary of State for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebarri explained "a certain number of stations" in Paris are "likely to be closed" from May 11th, yet he gave no further details. What for? Limiting travelers.
In his speech at the National Assembly this April 28, announcing the governmnet's deconfinement plan, the Prime Minister announced facemasks to be compulsory in public transit starting from May 11. In order to lower the risks of contamination in transit, Edouard Philippe explained that operators will have to get organized to allow, even in the metro, barrier gestures to be respected. "For instance, the capacity of Paris subway will be reduced to under 30% of its base. A seat in two will not be available, markings on the floor of platforms will be set. In other words, getting ready to limit the influx in case of crowds" he said.
In the meantime, here’s how the public transit network adapted to this health crisis.
In an interview with Parigo, RATP CEO Catherine Guillouard revealed how the service was organized during containment. She says that 1,300 cleaners were working and paying extra attention to contact zones such as bars and door opening devices that are disinfected and the “railroad rolling stock” is cleaned twice as much:
“like before, it’s cleaned in the night, but also once between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., that is to say, after the first peak hour and before the second peak hour in order to keep on reinforcing the cleaning plan”.
As for buses, they are cleaned in the night. Cleaning measures adopted during confinement could last afterwards, such as cleaning by robots. The latter currently clean most of Châtelet.
Without a surprise, as for line extension works, delay is to be allowed, but so far, it’s too soon to assess delays more precisely and what zones are impacted. As for the automatization of the line 4 – said to be effective by late 2022 – “priority is given to tests. This is why it only opens at 10 a.m. on Sundays because we keep running them.”
