It is the newest, most modern and, in principle, the most comfortable metro line in the RATP network.
Line 14, which connects Olympiades to Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen in Seine-Saint-Denis, has however experienced a series of malfunctions on its northern part for long weeks.
On the brand new section put into service in December 2020, going from Saint-Lazare to the Mairie-de-Saint-Ouen terminus, travelers suffered strange sudden braking or slowdowns.
Worse: some MP14 automatic trains triggered emergency braking procedures, which were felt brutally by passengers.
"Speed limits were temporarily put in place between Saint-Lazare and Saint-Ouen in November and December 2021, in order to limit their impact and thus avoid train stops, caused by safety braking, generating discomfort for our passengers", confirms the RATP.
No excuse for the ultra-harsh braking.
One more chance that there are no injuries
— Nora✝️🇫🇷 (@nora_amel11) November 19, 2021
How can this abnormal behavior of new trains on an ultra-modern infrastructure be explained?
For weeks, teams from RATP, Alstom (the MP14 manufacturer), and Siemens (automation systems supplier) conducted investigations.
"The mobilization of RATP engineering and maintenance teams as well as our industrial partners has made it possible to understand the phenomenon linked to the shoes of the new MP14 trains", welcomes the Régie.
Concretely, “the problem was linked to aluminum deposited on the rails by the shoes of the new MP14 trains.
This created electric arcs which disrupted the communication of the automatic pilot, ”clarifies the Association of Transport Users (AUT / FNAUT-IDF).
A line still in "underspeed"
Since then, “measures have been taken to solve the problem (in particular, cleaning the rail and adapting the shoes), continues the RATP.
Daily monitoring, via technical indicators, is put in place to ensure that there is no deterioration and that this phenomenon does not appear again.
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This anomaly corrected, the association of users would now like the automatic line to regain 100% of its capacity.
“The frequency is now one train every 105 seconds, or 94% of capacity, while attendance has returned to 100% normal, points out Michel Babut, vice-president of AUT.
We would like Île-de-France Mobilités and the RATP to increase the pace to reach a metro every 95 seconds during rush hour”.
In addition to line 14, the association notes that “line 11 has a 76% offer for 71% of passenger traffic.
And line 12 offers 85% metro for 85% passenger traffic.
In other words, the trains are 100% full, ”adds Michel Babut, who has been calling for a return to 100% service for many weeks.
For its part, Île-de-France Mobilités has not planned to revise upwards the "lighter" offer put in place for the year 2022 with the aim of generating savings of around 60 million euros.
In early April, according to IDFM, passenger traffic was still 20% below pre-Covid-19 normal.
