Metro and RER: increasing passenger capacity and safety

With over 70 years of experience as the historical operator of the Paris metro, we have built a worldwide reputation for our expertise in rapid transit systems and world leadership in high-capacity automated metros. On our regional rail network in the Île-de-France region, we have equipped the central trunk of the RER A line with our automated pilot system, a world first for a line transporting more than one million passengers a day. This will allow us to further improve the line’s regularity.

In South Korea, with 500,000 passengers a day, the “9” is the Seoul metro’s flagship line. It is the only metro line whose operations were contracted out to a private operator. Operated by our RATP Dev subsidiary in a joint venture with Transdev since 2009, the “9” has built its reputation on quality service and regularity.

Always expanding! To increase our transport offer for passengers and to provide more rapid access to our multimodal network, four metro line extension projects are currently underway (with a total of 14 new stations for metro lines 4, 11, 12 and 14). These exceptional extensions and improvements made to stations on our network will provide rapid connections with the future Grand Paris Express network.

Flexibility, regularity, shorter intervals during peak hours: the automated metro is an effective solution for optimising the performance of rapid transit networks. RATP was a pioneer in the first automated steering systems with driver, and today we are the world leader in automated high-capacity metros. To this end, we are developing still safer, more efficient systems, in collaboration with the major industrial players in the field.

Line 14 was the world’s first 100% automatic wide-gauge metro line when it started up service in the heart of Paris, and it remains a reference thanks to its ongoing modernisation. The two planned extensions, to the north into the Paris suburbs and to the south to the Orly Airport, will triple its total length, without jeopardising its performances in terms of speed and operational flexibility.

The performance of metro line 14 in Paris is unmatched anywhere in the world for an automated wide-gauge metro, with an interval between trains of only 85 seconds during the morning rush hour.

Metro line 1, which has been operating in Paris for more than a century, was fully automated in 2012 without a major interruption of traffic, another world first that demonstrates the innovative capacity and expertise of our teams. We are facing this technological and organisational challenge once again on metro line 4, for even greater security and quality of service.

We are modernising our manually-operated lines by incorporating digital technology in our train circulation systems, to reduce the interval between trains and to put more trains into circulation during peak hours.

Transporting more than one million passengers a day, the RER A is one of the most heavily used urban rail lines in the world. In 2017, we installed our automated steering system with driver on the central trunk of the RER A, a world first for such a high-capacity line. Thanks to this technical innovation, we will be able to improve the line’s regularity and robustness thanks to optimised speeds and constant intervals between trains.