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This plague that's causing more and more delays in the subway

undefined undefined 27 janvier 2025 undefined 08h30

undefined undefined 27 janvier 2025 undefined 17h19

The Editor

© christian tokoto / Unsplash

On January 23, Jean Castex, head of RATP, provided an update on the state of the network to our colleagues at Figaro. The number one topic of this discussion: the numerous punctuality issues faced by users, many of which are caused by a single, growing blight that has been increasing over the years.

We all know that taking the metro is not always a walk in the park for Parisians. Between construction work, strikes, technical problems, and passenger incidents, the reasons for train delays keep piling up and often aren't the same. Topping this list are the abandoned packages and luggage. It's a real disaster, with numbers skyrocketing in recent years, causing malfunctions left and right.


Lost items galore

This is a number that, honestly, chills you to the bone. According to studies carried out by the Paris transport authority, since 2019, the RATP has reported a 260% increase in the number of abandoned packages. It's a dramatic rise, as each alert leads to traffic interruptions.

, to bring in the dog teams to detect the presence of a potential bomb.

According to the former Prime Minister, the rise from 190 in 2022 to 325 in 2023 is mainly due to the growing distraction of travelers. With more and more people glued to their phones, they hardly pay attention to their surroundings, let alone their personal belongings unless those items are already on their shoulder or attached to their hands.


A problem among many others

To tackle this issue, the number of announcements in the metro has increased, as has the number of teams ready to respond to minimize disruption times. The RATP actually noticed a real improvement during the Summer Olympics.

Last year, since the number of users had been divided by 2.5 for the same number of agents as usual, leading to faster resolved situations.

Unfortunately, while abandoned packages are one of the major causes of punctuality issues, they are far from the only ones. And things are not expected to improve in 2025, as numerous construction projects have already been announced on about ten lines, involving plenty of closures, fewer trains running, and so on. Nevertheless, we still hold on to the hope that one day, maybe, it will be nice to travel on Parisian transport.