Coué method or vision? This Monday, the president of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) and president of the region, Valérie Pécresse, said she was “confident” about the restoration of the level of service in public transport by March, thanks to a major effort to recruit operators.
“The operators have rolled up their sleeves and are getting wet,” she assured after an extraordinary board meeting of the transport authority in the Ile-de-France region.
Mass recruitment
The CEOs of RATP, Jean Castex, and SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, in particular, were summoned to take stock of their action plans against the problems of recruitment and staff absenteeism, which have largely harmed to the deterioration of punctuality over the last two years.
The RATP has gone all out in recent months to recruit drivers and maintenance employees, and is now placing the emphasis on station agents. The SNCF has also increased its workforce.
“I am confident because I still see enormous progress, and in particular this massive arrival of forces,” enthused Valérie Pécresse, who had demanded a return to normal by March – in time for the Olympic Games and summer Paralympics.
Fight against false sick leave
The transport offer has gradually risen since 2022 to gradually return to its pre-Covid levels, in particular for buses. However, three metro lines remain in great difficulty: 6, 8 and 13.
Another scourge encountered by the two operators: absenteeism and the explosion of “false sick leave” according to the regional president. They would represent 50% of the “production losses” of Ile-de-France transport, that is to say the difference between the actual offer and the offer planned in the contracts with IDFM.
RATP has increased its checks on sick leave and recruited four doctors for this purpose. More than a hundred dismissals were decided following the discovery of some of these false judgments.
Stop abandoned luggage
Furthermore, the number of abandoned packages has exploded in recent years: six packages are forgotten every day across the entire network, three times more than in 2019.
“We have no scientific study to explain this phenomenon, but we imagine that the increase in the use of smartphones and headsets means that travelers have their minds elsewhere,” Jean Castex believes.
The RATP intends to reduce the intervention times of dog technical teams, by distributing them a little better across the network and by increasing from 20 to 36 dogs capable of detecting explosives.
Valérie Pécresse, also president of the Ile-de-France region, also welcomed an agreement made with the emergency services which will allow people who are victims of illness to be removed from the trains, although it takes until ‘now treat them on site – which causes delays.