The RATP has identified a series of errors, a month after an incident on line 4 of the Paris metro which trapped hundreds of travelers in the middle of rush hour, in stifling heat, in five trains stuck in the tunnels. An investigation had been launched at the request of RATP CEO Jean Castex in the wake of the incident, which occurred on June 14 on this north-south line which serves three major Parisian stations.
Hot weather, rush hour and traveler information “sometimes clumsy and mostly perceived as late” contributed to making the situation painful for users, according to a memo of which AFP obtained a copy. One of the trains immobilized in the tunnel “experienced sound system malfunctions, preventing the reception of any information on board for nearly an hour”, specifies the memo.
Another mistake recognized by the RATP: the decision to evacuate the trains blocked in the tunnels should have been taken earlier, due to the “lack of visibility on the return to normal and degraded waiting conditions” for travelers. A succession of incidents have thus “led to many complicated situations”, admits the RATP.
“Everything took longer”
At 6:06 p.m., a signaling failure disrupts the entire line. Then, from 6:42 p.m. to 7:17 p.m., “a bag stuck between the platform doors (on the platform, editor’s note) and the doors of a train leaving Cité (station in the center of Paris) causes seven immobilizations under tunnel”. At 7:18 p.m., an alarm signal was activated in a train, which “prolonged the immobilization of four shuttles in the tunnel and caused the immobilization of a fifth”. Finally, at 7:36 p.m., the passengers of one of these shuttles spontaneously decided to evacuate by descending onto the tracks.
Supervised evacuations will begin at 7:50 p.m. for a resumption of service at 10:10 p.m. According to the RATP memo, the series of incidents “made it impossible to correctly assess the time of resumption of traffic”. Additionally, Line 4 is only partially automated, with some trainsets still operating with conductors. “Everything took longer” because of this mix, according to the director of the rail network Agnès Ogier. The full automation of the line is only planned for December 2023.
The Régie therefore proposes several corrective measures such as the use of a stopwatch for incidents with a shuttle in a tunnel in order to better understand the waiting times of passengers and “to ask the question of evacuation”. The RATP also recommends strengthening the controls of the audible announcement systems in the shuttles and designating a referent per shuttle when they are immobilized to ensure better communication.