These new trains are going to change the Metro's image for decades to come. These metro trains will be bright, connected and fitted out with screens delivering real time passenger information: our priority is clearly focused on passenger comfort and information. This record-breaking order, again proving RATP's commitment to work alongside Île-de-France Mobilités to upgrade public transport used daily by the population, is part of a major rail rolling stock upgrading project —with 65% being replaced by 2032. This extraordinarily ambitious programme also involves overhauling the associated maintenance workshops, a major industrial challenge to be taken up by RATP in the coming years.
After launching the project to renew and upgrade metro lines 4, 6, 11 and 14, Île-de-France Mobilités and RATP are continuing their efforts and have placed a record-breaking order with the Alstom-Bombardier consortium for new trains for 8 metro lines in the Île-de-France region: metro lines 3, 3bis, 7, 7bis, 8, 10, 12 and 13 from 2024.
The contract to design and supply the future metro trains concerns up to a maximum of 410 MF19 (Rail Metro 2019) trains, for an investment of over 2.9 billion euros over 15 years led by Île-de-France Mobilités. The first firm order for 44 trains has been placed by Île-de-France Mobilités and RATP for metro lines 10 (30 trains with 5 cars each), 7bis and 3bis (14 trains with 4 cars each) to be delivered between 2024 and 2026 with this first contract being worth €658 million (including design costs and provisions for contingencies…).
After today's vote by the RATP Board of Directors, the financing of this order must be approved at the next meeting of the Board of Directors of Île-de-France Mobilités to take place on 12 December.
The MF19 trains will then be deployed on metro line 13. The replacement schedule has been brought forward by Île-de-France Mobilités to 2026 instead of 2032 to address the needs of this particularly busy line.
The future trains for metro line 13 and the other metro lines will be the subject of subsequent orders in line with Île-de-France Mobilités rolling stock replacement Schedule.
To take the specificities of each line into account and anticipate any future technological developments, the contract provides for the possibility of purchasing trains of different lengths with driving cabs. In the event of certain lines being automated, it will be possible to order the automatic versions of the trains for these lines (without a driving cab).
|
|
|
|
More comfortable trains
These new trains will be fitted out with three wide doors (1.65m) on each side of each car for smooth passenger embarking/disembarking, comfortable seating, one continuous aisle for the entire train (no separations between the cars), cool-air ventilation for greater passenger comfort, information on digital display and sound systems and state of the art closed-circuit video surveillance.
New services are also being planned for passenger comfort, such as USB sockets to recharge mobile phones or under-seat LED lighting for a more pleasant atmosphere.
In addition, these trains will be fitted out with an on-board flow-based passenger counting system so line operators can have more precise information on passenger frequentation and thus improve the service they provide.
Finally, this order will help create or perpetuate the jobs of 2,300 people in France, including 700 engineers on the numerous sites that will be taking part in the project (Crespin, Valenciennes, Ornans, Aix-en-Provence, Villeurbanne, Tarbes). In all, this project will mobilise 9,000 jobs across the entire French railway industry.
An investment for the benefit of passengers
This contract worth more than 2.9 billion euros will transform the metro's image by its historic scale.
The contract is part of Île-de-France Mobilités and RATP's policy to upgrade all the rolling stock on the network operated by RATP and complements the contract for the next-generation of tyre-based metro trains, referred to as MP14, with the first 8-car trains (6 cars currently) being up and running on metro line 14 as early as 2020.
In addition, the replacement of all trains on the RER suburban line A, increasing the line capacity by 30%, has been completed since February 2017.
And, by 2025, the 4,700 RATP buses will have been replaced with a 100% clean fleet.