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Platform edge doors for line 13
Since 2010, RATP has been installing platform edge doors at twelve stations on line 13. These will improve regularity of service and safety on the line, which is currently the most saturated on the metro.
Platform edge doors reduce the risk of intrusion onto the tracks and therefore allow trains to enter stations at a greater speed.
Line 13, a saturated service
Y-shaped line 13 is one of the busiest lines in the metro network, with nearly 600,000 journeys made on its trains each day. Successive extensions of the two branches to the north (in 1951, 1976, 1980, 1998 and 2008) have brought increases in passenger numbers, without any possibility of increasing the number of trains in service during rush hour on the central section of the line. The time taken to get passengers on and off the trains has constantly increased, further slowing down traffic. The slightest malfunction causes a chain reaction and the time taken to resume normal service has become longer and longer. RATP therefore decided, in conjunction with STIF, the transport organising authority, which is co-financing the work, to fit platform edge doors at ten stations on the central section (from Montparnasse to Place de Clichy) and two stations on one of the northern branches (Saint-Denis–Porte de Paris and Basilique de Saint-Denis).
What are the benefits?
Platform edge doors make traffic more regular:
- Through better management of passenger boarding and alighting (greater fluidity, easier to close doors), thus reducing the time spent in stations;
- By preventing accidents and stopping passengers or objects that might interrupt traffic from getting onto the tracks.
Why twelve stations?
The twelve stations concerned by the project were chosen on the basis of objective criteria:
- The number of passengers getting on or off the trains at each station
- The number of intrusions onto the tracks that have caused delays at each station
- The need to equip the whole of the central section in order to ensure fluid, regular traffic.
Line 13: a priority
The platform edge doors project is just one component of a vast modernisation operation undertaken since 2006 to improve transport conditions on the line.
Work completed since 2008:
- Implementation of automatic turnaround at the Châtillon–Montrouge terminal, reducing the time taken for trains to reverse direction
- Installation of a centralised control room for line 13, managing traffic more responsively and providing better information to passengers.
Work in progress:
- Renovation of rolling stock (33 new trains currently in operation, which amounts to half the fleet)
- Implementation, by 2011, of a constant speed control system, which will reduce the minimum intervals between two trains
