” Infernal and dehumanized. This is how line B of the RER, which crosses the Paris region from north to south, is qualified. It is used by about a million travelers a day, and is reaching saturation point. The works, the recurrent strikes since September, the delays and the daily technical problems exceed the users. Especially since since January 1 the price of tickets has increased.By Fanny Guelb
Crowded platform, safety instructions broadcast by loudspeakers, it is an incessant din which invades the Châtelet station of the RER B direction Mitry-Claye, in full rush hour. For this worker who goes every day from the center of Paris to the northern suburbs, this RER is a “ public service that no longer works “.
” These are problems of regularity, of train and then there, for almost 2 years now, interruptions due to construction sites which prevent every evening of almost every weekend to go in a simple way on this route for example “, he explains.
The fear that the situation will deteriorate
Problems justified by Grégoire de Lasteyrie, the vice-president of Île-de-France Mobilités, the transport organizing authority. He highlights the difficulty of recruiting staff, but also the almost continuous operation of the line. ” In any line, when you decide to modernize it, it inevitably has impacts “, he advances. ” This is linked to the fact that we operate 7 days a week, 365 days a year and almost 24 hours a day because in fact the network stopped for just a few hours, at night “.
But for Jean-Marie Baty, member of the RER B North Users’ Committee, the end of the work would not mean an improvement in service. ” There are many fears that this situation will deteriorate with the commissioning of the CDG Express insofar as it will have priority. On all the others, if there is the slightest breakdown, the slightest incident with a user, there will be no more clearance possible. The entire RER B will be penalized “warns Jean-Marie Baty.
New excessive pricing according to users
Return to the RER platform. Axel, in his thirties and wrapped up in his black down jacket, gets angry at the recent increase in transport ticket prices. “ It affects our finances. Already it’s not easy with ordinary expenses “, he underlines. However, Michel Savy, an economist specializing in transport, recalls that users only pay 30% of the total cost of transport. This measure would therefore serve above all to bail out the accounts of Île-de-France Mobilités.
The issue of funding is still a bit of a condition that sets the limits of what we can and what we can’t do. Many cities in France have experienced a decline in the share of commercial revenue relative to overall costs and therefore a necessary increase in either public subsidies or contributions from businesses.
See you next January 13 at the request of the president of Île-de-France Mobilités, Valérie Pécresse, where the RATP and the SNCF will present ” their service quality recovery plan. »