A rainy Tuesday at the end of March at the French Judo Federation in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. The RATP has rented a room of impressive dimensions for the entire afternoon. This is where she trains her “helpers”. Régie employees usually in an office, ready to lend a hand during the Olympic Games to their colleagues in the field: staff in metro, RER, tram stations or at bus stops. In the audience, the CEO of RATP, Jean Castex, who participated in this session for more than an hour.
Because the former Prime Minister is aware of it: in these first Olympic Games in history where 100% of trips must be made by public transport, the public group will be on the front line and its performance scrutinized. The RATP should provide no less than 70% of the travel for the fifteen million people expected in Paris this summer during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Although he does not downplay the difficulties of the exercise, Jean Castex is optimistic: “
The Olympics are going to shake up and we will have to go to coal. I'm not saying there will be zero incidents; it's impossible. But in the end we will meet the challenge of transporting passengers without any major hiccups
,” he believes. Enough to amaze daily users of Parisian public transport. They note that the metro, the RER and the buses have not regained their pre-Covid punctuality and are all asking the same question: why would it work this summer with an unprecedented influx of tourists when it is still not working well today? today without any particular overload?