Paris metro punctuality: here are the 3 worst-performing lines

If you're used to taking public transport in Paris and the surrounding area, then you've undoubtedly seen crowded platforms and long waits before being able to board trains already overloaded with passengers. And the comments posted on X (formerly Twitter) by several Internet users bear witness to this.

With around 10 million tourists expected to visit the Paris Olympics in 2024, public transport in Paris and the Ile-de-France region is coming under close scrutiny, particularly when it comes to punctuality. According to the monthly barometer published by Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), three metro lines - lines 6, 8 and 13- are among the worst performers in this respect.

According to this famous monthly barometer from the Île-de-France Organizing Authority for Sustainable Mobility, line 6, which links Charles de Gaule - Étoile to Nation via Trocadéro, Bir Hakeim, Montparnasse and Place d'Italie, is heavily impacted by these delays. As the barometer reveals, this metro line failed to meet the peak-hour performance targets set by IDFM last September, falling below the 85% regularity mark.

The same applies to line 8, with less than 85% regularity, followed by line 13, with less than 88% regularity, again according to this monthly barometer. Bad news for these two metro lines, especially as they will be among the most heavily impacted during the Paris Olympic Games.

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Not far behind are lines 3 and 3bis, with less than 90% regularity, followed by lines 7, 7bis and 11, with almost 92% regularity. Conversely, lines 1 and 14 (automatic lines) as well as line 5 more than met their targets, even exceeding the 100% mark!

" In September, average punctuality across the network was 93.8% at peak times, and 96% overall. And in October, it was 91.8% at peak times and 94.5% overall. So there's a deterioration," Grégoire de Lasteyrie, vice-president of IDFM and LR mayor of Palaiseau, told France 3 Régions.

So how do we explain the repeated delays and deterioration on certain metro lines? Several factors are put forward, such as passenger incidents, but also abandoned luggage, with " an increase of 70% in October compared with last year ", according to Agnès Ogier, Director of the Rail Services BU at RATP, who spoke to France 3 Régions.

As Le Parisien explains, recruitment problems are also put forward, not forgetting the obsolescence of equipment on certain lines, in this case lines 7, 8 and 13, on which MF77s dating from 1977 are still running. On line 6, new trains are gradually arriving. MP89s, which had previously been used on line 4, are gradually replacing MP73s dating from the 1970s. But this modernization of the entire RATP network is taking time. On the RER side, the modernization operation has also been launched with the arrival, by 2025, of 146 MI20 trainsets, the new RER B.

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