How is Paris the best Underground Network? As London has many different Lines at different levels and loads of Underground Stations on each Line, plus more Major train Stations in London that go up to the Midlands, Wales, Scotland and the Eurostar from London St Pancras International to France, Belgium and Netherlands in Europe.
Will you (please!) also be producing an explainer on France’s expanding TGV network, and on how it fits into Europe’s broader high-speed rail network? I’ll be relocating to Paris soon-not immediately, but relatively soon, around 2025-and I’ve realized with a start that it’s been over two decades since I last set foot in Paris. When I was last there, I believe there were two TGV lines-I traveled south on one repeatedly-and high-speed rail elsewhere in Europe was a rarity, but sleeper cars all across Europe were still widely available and popular, while short-hop flights were rare and expensive. My understanding is sleeper cars then died out, and short-hop flights (ugh) became the norm for travel in the late ‘00s and throughout the ‘10s. But now I’m told France has something like _seven_ TGV lines, AND high-speed rail is available everywhere-including throughout Scandinavia, but not in the UK-sleeper cars are making a glorious comeback, short-hop flights are being phased out (thank goodness, what a time-waster those really are), and in theory I could ride a TGV to nearly any corner of France, or take nothing but high-speed rail from Paris all the way to northernmost Sweden!! Soooo … if you could elaborate on this, and fill in the gaps, or just tell us more about France’s expanded TGV and its place in Europe’s high-speed rail network, it’d be much appreciated! I’m planning on going … EVERYWHERE!! … from 2025 through 2032.
I think most importantly what the Métro does for Paris is make it so interconnected and therefore easy to get around (assuming, as you mention, accessibility is not a concern). Rarely will you find yourself more than a few blocks away from _multiple_ stations within the center city, and you can easily cover all corners of the city in a day, if needed.
Well, doing so by metro-means, so to say, is too expensive, this is the role for in-street PT. And this situation leads to large operational cost of maintenance of metro-system. Paris very much lacks of trams in its center which would be so much better for quick interconnection and connectivity, and accessibility. Its not practical to use potentially express kind of transportation like metro as local connectivity measure. That's why Paris metro are overcrowded (but this is the problem for many metros in the cities which abandoned trams in the city centers for the sake of "cars-must-run" ;)))
@@Whitebeard79outOfRus I'm parisian and I will disagree. The biggest problem with Paris' metro being overcrowded is the sheer density of the city, and the fact a lot of suburbanites use it. Because we use our metro system basically like a very high capacity tram network. Adding trams would make it both redudant and less effective. Trams have a lower capacity, speed and debit. Though are far nicer than metros to take, I'll definitely agree with this. But inside Paris, basically all main metro (outside of the bis, it's complicated) move at the very least 200 000 person a day in a normal year. What would be needed is both better intra-suburbs connexions, and higher speed lines of RER passing through Paris. I may be wrong there and do completely agree that above earth, the bus transit is *bad* inside the city. But far better and quite effective when including the suburbs, with 354 lines, 12000 stations and a lot of lines with a very good regularity and bus coming under 10 minutes of wait. We do lack in the road infrastructure for bus only roads, but it's getting better every year.
@@marcbuisson2463 Yes, trams are nice but I agree in that I don’t think building tram lines in the centre of Paris would add much value. The metro already provides high-capacity local service. Better bus service would probably be cheaper and just as effective at providing accessible transit (if I remember correctly, all of the buses in Paris are accessible). That said, I feel like you might be underselling the current bus system in Paris. Yes, frequencies aren’t as good as on the metro and buses can get stuck in traffic in places where they don’t have their own lane. But many of the bus stops are very well-designed; a lot of them even have screens showing when the next bus is coming. When I was living in Paris, I found that it was sometimes just as fast to take one bus to get from one place to another than it is to take two metro lines and spend time transferring. Perhaps providing better frequencies on certain bus lines and having more bus-lanes could make it an even more attractive service. I also wonder if an exception could be made for buses within their own bus lanes on streets that have recently had their speed limits lowered to 30km/h. The buses could perhaps be allowed to go 50km/h whereas private cars and trucks can go 30km/h. One tram extension within Paris that I think would make a lot of sense is extending tram lines T3a and T3b to Nation, which would allow people to transfer between the tram and all the metro lines and RER A at Nation.
@@ethandanielburg6356 Unless it has changed already, getting rid of stupid, arbitrary and convoluted rules surrounding connections between different modes of transportation with a t+ ticket would probably do some good. A couple of weeks before the first pandemic lockdown, I visited a friend near Paris. Before I left, we decided to visit the Orsay museum, in part because of how easy it is to go to the Austerlitz station from there. We got out of the museum a fair bit before the departure of the train I wanted to catch, just to be safe, and got to the RER station. Once we reached the platform, an agent told us that there is an abandoned shoe box in the RER and that they are evacuating the station, following the procedure. Fair enough, we go out of the station and try to take the metro. We walk briskly to the metro station nearby ; when I tried to go in with the ticket I had used to enter the RER station, I can't, because once you get out of the underground network, you are not allowed to connect back. I was already a little pissed, but I picked a second ticket and went on. Since the metro is slower than the RER, I didn't have that much time to complain. For some reason, there was some issue on the 10 line, I don't remember what, and it had to stop. We were explained which buses nearby got the the main destinations on the line, and how to get there. We find the right bus stop easily, wait a few minutes, go in, I try to reuse my second ticket, and it doesn't work. The driver explains that connections between the metro and the bus on a single ticket are not allowed. I reluctantly use a third one, try to estimate how long it will take to arrive near Austerlitz and whether or not I will catch my train. I won't. And, soon after we entered the bus, there was an announcement that it wouldn't go all the way to Gare de Lyon, which didn't affect me personally, but adds to the absurdity of the situation. In the end, I used three tickets for what was supposed to be a very straightforward trip and missed my train (which I could easily have done for free by walking there instead). I really felt like I was getting scammed. I know it was a very unlikely turn of events, one accident or abandoned luggage is a thing, three incidents in a row on the same short trip are another, and that it doesn't affect locals who have yearly subscriptions anyway, but I still think it is a shame to have such a good, interconnected network with lots of different modes of transportation just to discourage people to actually use these connections through tarification. I can't think of a single other city that uses the same tickets for different modes, but has so many different rules for which connections you can and cannot make, and for how long. These tickets are mostly used by people who aren't super familiar with the network, how are they this user unfriendly ?
@@filiaaut I have a monthly subscription so I can't complain but for my parents who came for the holidays, I took a monthly subscription too so as to avoid the hussles you encountered even if they aren't going to use the métro that much. I was in Lille for two days and it has a one day, two days, three days options that allow you to use one relatively cheap ticket for métro, tramway and bus. I was so glad about it
9:50 Can I just recommend everyone going on line 6 when they are at Paris. The view when going from station Passy to Bir-Hakim (so going southbound) and seeing the Eiffel tower is just beautiful. Mightve been one of the most impressive views of the Eiffel Tower.
It absolutely is the best view in my opinion. At night when your catch it twinkling is amazing. Be sure to get a window seat on the left if you are heading south, and right if you are heading north. North-south is probably best for the view
Yeah whenever I need to take line 6 down that path I always make sure to get a window view of the tower cause it never gets old. Also, while not a metro, bus #69 (nice) is practically a tour bus. It crosses the Bastille, Rivoli, the Louvre pyramid, Orsay, Invalides, and has a terminus in front of the Eiffel Tower.
@@caseysmith4206 Or if you are willing to take a stroll ( and eventually pay a ticket, if you didn't take a Paris Visite/several day pass )... leave at either Passy or Bir-Hakeim, cross the bridge by foot ( you'll be under the subway ) and go back in at the other station.
Yes, I agree with you! I think the most beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower is from the top of the Montparnasse Tower, (with the Defense in the background, it is incredible), but the view from line 6 is magnificent too (and far less expensive !).
I've been living in Paris for 2 years now. People complain a lot because the subway is often crowded, not extremely clean, and there might be a few delays from time to time but they don't realize how efficient it is, how lucky they are to have so many Subway lines and stations in such a small city
Thank you 🙏🏾 for looking past the aspect (crowded and Dirty) of one if not « the » oldest metro system in the world. The dense system makes it so that you are never ever more than 300m (~330yards) form a subway station in any direction
@@jandron94 I live in the 5th arrondissement and that's my case but I'm 5 min away from a RER B (train) station, which is connecting CDG in the North to South suburbs, going by the hub Châtelet-Les Halles. The video is not going into details concerning the RER, which is also a fast moving solution, even inside Paris !
@@huquui8789 If you're referring to Paris it's a small city. A very dense one for its size indeed but small nonetheless : you can pretty much walk from north to south of it in 2h (not including cergy yo melun or whatever since it's not Paris itself). In comparison NYC is several times the size of it, and i doubt you'd go from one island to the very last in even a day. Los Angeles is 100+km too from N to S
As a Parisian transit nerd, this is probably the best explaining video on Paris metro I’ve ever seen ! Well done ! Just a minor correction on line 11 expansion : it contains 6 new stations on little less than 6 kilometres of tracks…
@@RMTransit I think you got confused with the 4 other planned stations on the line 11 which didn't get funding yet (the Rosny-Bois-Perrier to Noisy - Champs section). They are still technically planned, so they may come to life one day !
@xr6lad There’s nothing really faster than the metro in Paris, and most people use it daily… the ridership figures speak for themselves… sorry but you’re wrong in this case
As a 16-year-old Canadian from the Fraser Valley in BC, visiting Paris in 1999 was a transformative experience. A great deal of that came from the liberating factor of how easy it was to use the vast Paris Metro system. It remains the best in the world in my mind.
I'm a Brit - so always nervous compaining about others' pronunciations. But it really grated the way he said 'gare' as 'gair', instead of 'gar'. Is that the French Canadian pronunciation?
@@rogink I'm not sure. I live about 4,000 km west of Canada's main French-speaking Canadian regions and have never been to Quebec. My very limited French doesn't help. It's possible you're right though.
Little detail: The loops with single-direction stations in lines 10 and 7bis were bulit as such to comply with a law at the time that obliged every household in Paris to have a metro station within a 500m radius.
Indeed, the served areas weren't even built-up back then in the end of the 19th century, so they considered a loop at the ending would be good enough. The loop on line 10 being eventually "broken" to extend the line to Boulogne.
The noise the metro makes in those square galleries to Boulogne is deafening ! I read 95db ! The engineers didn't foresee that when they built the extension.
@@seamusmckeon9109 It's a way of saying "two". It made its way into French (and English) from Latin, which took it from Greek, which took it from Sanskrit. Say you build a house between number 7 and 9. 8 is taken on the other side of the street, so the new house becomes 7bis. Same with the metro line.
The Paris métro has alwas been one of my favorites. I especially love the older cars that in a way feel like buses on a subway, and with the old stations and really sharp turns (looking at you, line 1 at Bastille). The cherry on top is of course pulling the door lever and hopping off before stopping entirely.
What a beautifull comment, being born and raised in Paris, i got instant images, feelings and memories while Reading your comment, like the very curved Bastille station on ligne 1, i mean it's true, and seems to be the only station like that, and that feeling when holding up the door's lever and seeing those doors open while the metro is still moving and hoping off, i may add the noise of the comprised air being released signaling the doors can be open. Since then i've lived in city like Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne with their more modern metro which are very good, but the Paris metros speacially the old ones have a certain charm.
Interestingly, Munich still has the old wagons with wooden interior that the Paris metro had before the ones you see in this video. They were retired at the end of the 1970s.
Parisian here, loved this video! There’s so much to mention about this network since it gathered so many interesting quirks over the decades, but there’s too much to fit in a 20-minute video and you did a great job at laying out the essentials. Very refreshing to hear some positive looks at it
I was in Paris 3 months ago for the first time. I visited A LOT of landmarks, monuments in 2 days and half thanks to the metro systems. Tour eiffel, arc de triomphe, musee du louvre, les catacombes, the pantheon, montmartre, victor hugo's house, gardens of luxembourg, le sacre coeur, notre-dame... after this little holiday i was so tired (my feet were burning 😅), but also very happy, i love history, art, science and observing alive what i studied on books was so satisfying. Wish we had similar metro here in italy, but in the biggest cities like Milan and Rome there are only few lines... it's not so simple for people moving across the cities, and that's also why we italians use cars a lot and buses are overcrowded
Hey it was so nice to hear about our beautiful metro system. We're from Paris and always enjoy our metro system, especially when we discover other metro systems. We often go on "metro walks" where we go to discover new lines and stations and it is really unique. Only thing we would add is the Paris Metro System only operates between 5am am midnight all week long, and 2am on the weekends. This is kinda stupid because some of our lines are fully automated and could just run all night just like the German light metro systems. Come to visit Paris for the transportation, you will enjoy it so much !
Well, being fully automated doesn’t necessarily make operating overnight all that much easier! It often has more to do with the lines infrastructure design! Thanks for watching!
@@haraldlenudpilc A system needs to have down time for track maintenance when the system has only one set of tracks for each line. The New York Subway, on the other hand, has two sets of tracks for a line and therefore can run 24 hours.
@@RaymondHng But you can have downtimes in the week and 24hr service from Friday to Sunday. Would this be Possible with Paris Infrastructure? Berlin does it that way and I think the infrastructure is comparable.
I have been to Paris four times in the past 12 months. It is a city that is defined both by its rich history, and by the incredible feats of transportation engineering that everyone uses every day without really thinking about how remarkable they are. Thank you for the tour.
Love the Metro. The biggest issue with it is accessibility as you mentioned. Going on the Metro as a parent with young kids who are in a buggy is a less than fun experience. There's a lack of lifts and the fare gates are tight and shut really fast. It's still an epic system though.
yes it's a problem and i think it will be complucated for some years many stations are build in very narrow spaces and it's very complicated to build elevators for example
Great you mentioned this issue. Visited paris a few weeks back and was hugely disappointed by the old rakes with too much noise around the curve and yes with the infrastructure like ticket gate, accessibility issue and its maintenance.
Thank you for a great video :) It's a pleasure watching you now from Ukraine, especially in this war time, when all our transit projects gave been stopped and a lot needs to be rebuilt. I hope you review some of the Eastern European transit systems in the future (in Poland, Czech Rep., Romania, Georgia, etc. - there will definitely be something interesting to review)
having been a frequent visitor to Paris in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I found the Metro fast and efficient. The naming and direction of travel being the ultimate destinations took a bit of getting used to. The frequent trains and interconnectivity were fabulous. Thanks for your feature on the up to date lines as well as the future ones.
@@jan-lukas Not unusual, but as I said it took a bit of familiarisation, especially as I was unaware of the various locations. It was a learning curve.
Now the metro is much more dangerous, the great replacement of french per African and Arabic have been working at full speed since 1970-1980… so… much more crime.
I just came back from a trip to Paris. And I have to say, I was impressed by their public transport, not only metro, but trams, buses and trains as well. This video couldn't have a better timing!
The lack of trams in the center and on radial directions is the biggest problem of Paris PT. 'Coz only them are able to relish the overcrowded P-metro for reasonable price and time of construction. Hope that Ann Idalgo will do smthg about it
@@walideg5304 There's no law preventing it. It's more that there's just too much traffic (not only cars but also bikes, buses, delivery trucks and even pedestrians). As such it would probably be too slow to really compete with the metro which is already dense enough (as explained in the video). There are 2 tram lines which may be extended within central Paris though. The first one is T9 which may be expanded to Place d'Italie in order to connect with the multiple lines out there (M5, M6 and M7). The second one is T8 which will be expanded to Rosa Parks, it is considered to expanded further into Paris using former "petite ceinture" rail tracks. That would definitely make of it a super cool tramway line!
It's also interisting to note that only the central part of Line 13 and it's latest extensions are modern, because the line is a actually the unification of two lines in the 80': line 14 in the south and line 13 in the north
As a Parisian and fellow transit nerd, this is one of your best videos. Your map animation skills have greatly improved. The inclusion of metropolitan/regional context is a *very* nice touch. Great job, Reece!
The Paris Metro is my favorite Metro system in the world. There is no rush to run to the trains as often it happens that one train leaves the station, you already hear the next one coming. It is so quick and clear to use, making it going around Paris a breeze. The RER trains are one of the most "floating" like trains I have ever been on. Their ride quality when it comes to how smooth they go is unprecedented. Sure, not every line and every train is like that, but whenever I am in Paris I am amazed how smooth they run.
This was by far the best video that you ever presented. I was mesmerized throughout. The metro and interlinking rail systems were extensive. Well done! Congratulations to all.
Long have I waited for this one Reece ! I can can give you tour when you want. Paris metro was originally designed as an underground tram on high platforms, that's why the stations are so close together (sometimes as close as 200 m from eachother) Certainly not the standard nowadays. The city and the State debated for 30 years on what to build, regional transit or municipal metro. The city won because of the Universal Exhibition and Olympics of 1900 looming nearer and nearer. Ironically the same kind of debate took place before the Grand Paris Express plan was layed out. Was the suburbian area to be equipped with a slow and frequently stopping metro or a RER style loop? The Region and the State debated for years before coming to a compromise, not perfect but that's still something. Lines 10 and 7bis loops were made because the Law voted by the City imposed no point of the city would be more than 400 m away from a metro station. So in order to avoid building antennae lines or other lines, splitting a line in a loop about 500 m across was a reasonable compromise, not to forget those places also retain technical terrain difficulties, especially near the Buttes Chaumont park where the track is 30 m above an old Gypsum quarry while still being 25 m deep under the street ! The park itself is the opening of the quarry that has been transformed into a park during Haussemann overhaul of the city ! A simple mistake on your part, line 12 is now 31 stations long, a possible extension to the North could add up to 4 or 5 new stops -unlikely to be built anytime soon though. As well as 2 to 3 stations to the South, which would bring the line up to between 37 to 39 stations in total... Line 11 is likely to be extended to Rosny early 2024, 6 months before line 14 big extension. However the second phase to Noisy is unlikely to be built soon as it is judged not cost effective as a ridership perspective, a shame. As for line 15 I think I figured out how it will be run once finished. No need to make trains alternate between the two services (loop and antenna), Champigny station layout allows to do that with still running the trains from terminus to terminus by going twice on the Northern tracks (once per the loop and once terminating) and once on the Southern tracks to Noisy, the trains essentially run the loop TWICE and take the junction tunnels once to allow that trickkery; so a frequency of a train every 3 minutes from any of the termini will naturally give a 90 second frequency on the rest of the loop. Of course, automation can allow service reaffectation on the fly if necessary.
Nice explanations! I will just add a few notes: - line 12 extensions are as old as the Nord-Sud itself and some were planned precisely since the 30s and still not getting built... and the northern extension to Aubervilliers was planned to go to Saint-Denis back then. - the 7bis bridge above the quarry is in fact a urban myth : it was filled in first, they they drove piles down the soil to reach the bedrock up to 14m below at Danube station and structure strengthening walls have been dug latterly at many places along the line. So it's not really a bridge in the conventional term but it reuses some of its techniques. iirc there is a maintenance gallery running under it. - the line 11 extension was mostly thrown away due to the construction of lines 17 and 18, because TOD are already being built along this line which might never see the light of day... - as for M15 service patterns, the video was based on what was said in one of the latest reports from GPE when they tried to dismantle the Champigny tracks allowing looping services. It will most probably be run as you told internally but it would be invisible to passengers anyway
Glasgow’s subway would be an interesting short video. 3rd oldest in the world, one single loop, miniature trains. Unchanged since opening in the late 19th century
Actually, whilst the route and size of the Glasgow Subway remains unchanged its trains and at some stations the platform layouts have changed. Soon it will be experiencing more major changes - new fully driverless trains, etc!
My favorite part of the Paris metro is the manual door handles. The rotating knob you hold up as it approaches the station and instantly opens once the lock is released. So much more satisfying than tapping the green button on newer trains!
I love how I am able to access so much of Paris on such amazing Metro lines. There's that heat that hits you as you descend in to the area where subways come in! There's a unique scent and I love it - what a fabulous metro system. I love the complex details in your video! This is such fabulous history and I have learned so much. I appreciate this so much!! 🙂
About the scent, did you know from where it comes ? to limit metallic particles in the air generating pollution and causing signalling problems, we use wooden brake pads dipped in vegetable oil (peanut for example) to protect them from fire and reduce breaking noise!
@@LeGrandJuju49 Is that what you use in Paris? Not sure which country you are in! It's not a bad scent - it's hard to describe - I think steam comes up from the underground in Paris and it could in part be a hot steam scent - a bit like the scent in the subway system in Manhattan!!! Transit is so fascinating.
@@christinecamley Sorry, I'm Julian and I live near Montparnasse station in Paris. Rubber tyred lines also have an additional smell coming from the old trains running on them on line 11 and 6. Line 1 and 4 have trains generating less heat and part of the odor left a bit.
@@christinecamley yes brake pads are made of oil scented wood. There's also some specific scent added to the cleaning ingredients, that's the one most people notice. The very important thing when it comes to Paris Subway scent is that it's all naturally aerated on the historic lines ( read : there's no fan pumping air from outside into the subway system ). Line 14 and modern extensions have fans moving air around as well as the RER A, B & D. ( C is not deep enough, the aeration is done by vents in the side opening in the walls over the Seine )
Just returned from Paris and I have to say it was so easy to get around every where within zones 1-3 using the Métro and the multitude of buses. I get that North America may not have the density of European cities, but man do I wish we could replicate something here for the GTA and Golden Horseshoe.
Back when I lived in Paris (early 70s), they still had some trains where you had to lift the handle to open the door, and then actually PULL the sliding door open. The doors did close automatically. The newer trains had a handle you lifted to open the door, but it did open and close itself.
The original Vienna 1970's metro cars are like that, powered doors but with a mechanical handle to start. Later ones have a button, but none of them just all open and close like with most (?) subways.
Actually, back to the 1950s and 1960s, yes you had to manually open the doors, but they would close semi-automatically. In addition to the driver, there was a second employee, who would stand by his open door, check that all doors were clear, and then press a button which would active a pneumatic system pushing pistons at each door to close them. Then when the metro was at speed in the tunnel, the pressure would be deactivated (to save on wear and tear), so that conceivably... yes you could open the doors while the train was running!
Hi, I'm a Parisian French and I use Google translation so excuse me for the spelling mistakes so I wanted to congratulate you on your video because it explains the Paris metro very well the extensions the Grand Paris express the new trains the new material and the new lines So you have the certainty and the certification of a Parisian that your video is good continue like that you manage man
I love it too as I enjoy getting out of the train while it's still running. However I'm less of a fan now because covid made me a lot more paranoid. These things are touched by hundreds of different people every single day.
Hey there, I’d love to see you do a video on Salt Lake City’s transit system. It won lots of praise and awards for its expansion projects in the early-mid 2010’s but hasn’t really done anything major since. It’s not a very covered topic here on RUclips. It’s a pretty substantial network for a city of its size but I think it’s worth looking at. Thanks :)
Thanks for all the effort put into the descriptions of each metro line. What I'd really like to know about is the philosophy (or lack of it), behind how the individual routes were chosen. In the London system, the attempt was for each line to interconnect with each other line just once, making the decision of where to change lines very easy. In the Paris system, everything is comparatively random, with I think two interconnection points between each line and every other line? Just compare the London and Paris maps!. Thanks for any clarification on how the routes were chosen.
Line 5's Gare d'Austerlitz stop is something straight out of Cities Skylines. The station is elevated and in the Gare d'Austerlitz station's roof, right under the glass ceiling. Btw, if you haven't seen it, the massive works at Gare d'Austerlitz to renovate its structure are done and most of the scaffolds were removed, so you can finally see the beautiful glass ceiling, and see everything from the line 5 stop.
Enjoy! Lines 4, 12 and 14 already have some extensions open. The most recent line M12 (North end) new stations are quite weird aesthetically speaking. They are whiter than a dentist office... Not really convinced by the design choice to be honest. But the recent new stations on the North end of line M14 are really nice and the new ecofriendly / vegetalized neighborhood served by the new M14 Pont Cardinet and Porte de Clichy stations has great buildings and stunning views. (It's rue Mstislav Rostropovich and neighboring park up to Avenue de Clichy to the East and the "stepped tower" of the new main courthouse to the North). Being GPEx-adjacent, all existing M11 stations have been modified and upgraded to be ready for the major extension of the line to the East, up to M15, opening in a few months. If you haven't been in Paris for some time, there are a bunch of new Tram lines in the suburbs : T9, departing from Porte de Choisy (13th district) is particularly nice and well done. If you need tips and advice, don't hesitate !
A comment said it above but I highly recommend you to take the line 6 and pass throught stations Passy and Bir-Hakim for the magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower. The line passes above the Seine and at night, it's way more beautiful !
One of the few things I remember from my French lessons at school is that gare is pronounced gar like car, not gare like mare, because guerre (French for war) is pronounced the latter way
I was surprised to read that Hamburg unlike many other German cities got rid of its tram network in 1978! Still the city has nearly 1,000 km of U and S-Bahn which for a 5+ million metropolitan area is really good.
Basically, the Parisian metro was built to serve the Parisians (there was even an abandoned concurrent project that should only connect the railway stations, but it was useless for the population of Paris, it was imagined to serve mainly the train users). It has two main features : - wherever you live in Paris, you must have a station in a 500 meters perimeter around your home, - wherever you want to go in Paris, from the point you are in the city, you'll have at most two metro changes. These two features are, in my opinion, the reason why the Parisian metro is one of the best in the world.
@@RMTransit Yeah but there are some examples (The U line) that helps to connect the lines together without going through the core of the urban area (especially Châtelet - Les Halles Station), and in some trains (RER C and D, operated by SNCF) the RER lines are mentioned as different lines, but still a part of the Transilien network (Even though they are more conventional than RER, but still frequent and running high capacity trains). and on some corridors, the transilien lines operates as express RER lines that can also be express metro line etc.. etc...
@@RMTransit Interesting fact about RER and Transilien is that some RER are Transilien lines. For the moment 2 operators run the rails services in Paris, SNCF and RATP. SNCF being the national operator, they created brands to differenciate their activies : TGV (high speed trains), TER (Regional train), Intercités (long distance low speed trains) and Transilien (Paris/Ile de France). So, the lines they operates in Paris (Train lines H,J,K,L,N,P,R,U, Tramway lines T4 and T11 and RER lines C,D and E) are all branded Transilien. For the line A a small section is operated by SNCF so only this part is Transilien and the rest of the line is operated by RATP. The line B is split in two, half is run by RATP and the other half is run by SNCF (so Transilien).
For St denis pleyel, the station is, according to what I could have as info until then (not 100% so) built in 1 block. Basically, the level of the tracks is in a single room, like chatelet les halles. Which means that when the M14 opens there, we will be able to see the platforms and tracks of the M15-16-17 but deserted, then with test trains, then the accesses will open one after the other. And for Orly it will be the same. EDIT: at 20:00 the corridor starting in bend, is the old tunnel which linked line 3 and 3bis (which was the old route of line 3)
This is What will happen in Orly for sure. At Saint Denis Pleyel, this is very plausible. The only other technique is what they did in 1981 when they built Gare du Nord underground RER B station : they built both halves separately then broke through the wall between the two at key locations.
Went to Paris 6 yrs ago and as I love train travel was blown away how brilliant the whole rail system was in Paris especially the Metro system .We also took the TGV down to Nice ,amazing .Full marks for a thorough and incredible explanation of Paris's Metro .
Few things I think you missed: 1. Paris Metro trains run on the right. This is significant because mainline trains in France run on the left. Including RER. 2. While oldest trainsets have 4 doors per car, the newer ones have three much wider doors per car. This means that lines with platform screen doors cannot use the oldest trains, so these were moved to other lines during convertions. 3. Another reason that line 4 is so busy is that it is the onlly line to stop at Ile de la Cite just in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral. It is also the one line thst stops twice within Chatelet-Les Halles complex.
The story behind theses points is interesting : 1. Paris metro run on the right because it is an emanation of tramway engineering and not mainline train engineering, hence it runs right-handed as tramways used to. Also, some mainline trains run on the right-hand side in Alsace and Lorraine. 2. choosing the between 4 small doors (angled on 60s trains car ends, which is quite unique!) or 3 wide doors already happened before the 60s too. interestingly, with people growing taller, and how French people stand in front of doors, the 3 wide doors per car was choose as superior since the late 70s. But even between 3 doors car trains, they are not positioned the same. As such, line 13 PSDs will need to be demolished and rebuilt for new MF19 trains... 3. This is not the reason at all, as Cité station doesn't see that much traffic compared to other stations : the line connects together 3 major railway stations and Les Halles. The line is very busy from people leaving Transilien services at Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est and Gare Montparnasse and heading towards Chatelet and back mostly.
@@LeGrandJuju49 well, last time I was in Paris (and that was two weeks ago give or take) there was a lot of people on the cite station. But mostly what I ment was that serving a super touristy spot on top of these connections is what pushes the line even further into the busy land. As for Alsce-Lorraine I beluve mainland trains run there on the right because the biggest railway construction period in Europe was roughly from 1860's to 1910's and the region spent most of this time as part of Germany (between Franco-Prussian war and WWI) which runs it's trains on the right.
@@mancubwwa Exactly ! And we then were too lazy to rebuild signals and stations for running on the other side (cost), so we built overpasses to connect it to the rest of the network. And about line 4, I live on it and use it every day to go to and from work. Cité serves the Cathedral but also the Police prefecture and the former court, but RER B does the same and the proximity with places where it's nice to walk around makes people go there by other means. Although, many tourist groups use M4 but it's nothing (2 109 969 persons entering per year) compared to chatelet (13 466 536 persons entering per year) or even Odeon (5 896 554 persons entering per year) for example. (data RATP numbers)
@@LeGrandJuju49 Line 13 PSDs will be taken off and replaced by Line 4 style PSDs also because the 1.70m high PSDs were deemed insufficient at their job to prevent passenger to get on the tracks, plus Line 13 platforms were not enhanced properly as Line 1, 4 and 11 were (yes Line 11 was remade to accomodate PSDs because when the GPX project was launched, the line was supposed to be automated but it won't likely happen unless the line is extended to Noisy)
I like that once you know the London underground you can easily navigate Paris as they have an almost identical map layout and station signs. The London map makes so much sense that the Paris Metro took the same approach. Oh and London had the world's first underground railway.
Very nice video ! Thank you for taking the time to make it ! You just forgot to mention a small train station in Paris at the begining of the video : the Bercy train station 🙂
It talk about itself : - The busiest train station in Europe is the Gare du Nord with around 292m passengers/year - The biggest underground station in the world is Châtelet-Les Halles with around 120 trains/hour at peak hours (1 trains every 1 to 2 seconds) - The most complex interchange hub and one of the most complex in Europe is the Saint-Lazare - Auber Hub linking 2 RER lines, 2 Transilien lines, 7 Métro lines and all Normandy trains. - The most dense transit line in Europe is the RER A line with a ridership of around 1,4m passengers/day - The 5th most crowded transit line in the world is the Line 13 with 600.000 passangers/day
In terms of trains per hour, Châtelet-Les Halles is also the second busiest in Europe after Clapham Junction, which has 126 per hour. Clapham of course is not underground.
@@kartik_sinha yes 120 trains per hour. In theory 36 trains each way per hour peak for the RER B & D they share the tunnel between CLH and Gare du Nord, so it's a huge limiting factor, if each had it's own tunnel it. Add the RER A ( 24 to 36 trains per hour and way ). Since it's almost impossible to reach 36 trains per hour in the CLH/GdN tunnel due to the various issues on each line on average that 7 tracks underground station sees 120 trains per hour. The station could see more trains if the CHL/GdN tunnel was doubled to allow RER C and RER D separation... that's a main chokepoint for both line that will have to be addressed at some point as it impacts both line regularity and performance.
Yeah, for sure its traffic is very important, and as you says, it's becamed highly overcrowded over the years because it's too centralized on Paris while the number of suburb to suburb trips is becoming more important. This why a new network such as the Grand Paris Express was necessary to decentralize activities and the transit network while linking the major activity centers and give a new option for suburb to suburb trips. As someone living in Île de France, I'm looking forward to this since I use the network a lot when I need to go somewhere and I hope it will fix the actual status. Note: Counting the Transilien (1300km) and the Réseau Express Régional (585km), Paris or the Île de France urban rail network length is at 2100km, 2300km counting the Grand Paris Express for the part that will be in service in 2030. The IDF network also as really developed tram and express tram (train-tram) network with over 156km of tramways.
@@richardwills-woodward Big difference between Paris and London or Tokyo is density. Paris is at 20k inhabitants per km² for its metro area while London is at 3,9k and 6,2k. Useful to have them in mind when comparing network length. I think it also affects train length too indirectly.
Leave it to Franceland to continuously expand what is already one of the best metro systems in the world. Just picture if NYC or Chicago had that kind of determination.
Definitely one of the best metro systems, there are so many lines going into and out of the city in various directions, and the city center is laced with so many stations that you barely have to walk from one place to another. Loved it when I visited, and the littering and scammers aside, a great experience to ride. Some of the stations like le chatelet and gare du nord are huge!
As a French, I'm happy with this video but I immediately wonder about China (I know your arguments about Tokyo) because there are many, many Chinese cities with immense metro network and gigantic future expansion plans like Beijing or Shanghai with over 1,000 km of lines envisioned! (9 of out 10 biggest metro networks in the world are Chinese) But also smaller cities like Wuhan with 12M people (like Paris metropolitan area) and its more than 400 km of metro network and over 300 km of planned future expansion!
Hey, it's a really nice video about Paris metro. I think you make one about the underrated Transilien blended with the RER as lines C,D,E are part of its network, now (Line A and B being part of the transilien on half of the line for each (other halfs are operated by RATP)).
What also is really great of the paris metro is close to Opera station. It contains a big shaft/chamber of 20 meters high with 3 lines crossing each other on various depths. It's line 3, 7 and 8. I am amazed about the construction which was done early 1900
I don’t know whether this is still the case … but when I was growing up, France supplied the trains to our first subway system in Caracas, Venezuela. I rode on one of the inaugural rides, when it opened in ‘82 or ‘83 (I forget which year exactly), and it was sleek and modern and beautiful. I believe we used rubber tires, too, so it was also quite quiet! Quite a contrast to visiting my grandmother in Chicago, Illinois, and riding what were then often 30-year-old or even 40-year-old cars, built in the ‘40s and ‘50s with wicker seats and accordion doors and no a/c, screeching noisily around on steel tracks elevated up on wooden beams built over 100 years ago!! Having since moved to Illinois myself, I’ve grown quite fond of our el (and we did get new cars in the late ‘80s, shortly after I relocated), but what a contrast … the USA really does need to give more love to its public transportation.
As to the use of elevated rail in the Paris Metro, it was actually something of a war between the two modes (subway vs. elevated) where Parisian transit advocates passionately argued about them. There is also the conflict between the State--which wanted a large underground train system to facilitate military movements--and Paris, which wanted a localized transit-oriented system. Paris sneakily won by building its tunnels narrower than the standard gauge of the time, blocking out the mainline railways from the system.
Same thing in Britain... They use the same TRACK gauge as the continent, but their trains are narrower, so that their [military] trains can be used on the continent (e.g., to invade), but continental ones cannot be used in England (they cannot be invaded). Smart,. right ?
@@emileokal7752 I thought the best defense they ever had outside the Royal Navy was the pre decimalised currency system. Legend had it that German spies in WWII were caught by getting befuddled by pence/farthings/etc.
Paris's metro is indeed historic, dense and nostalgic with one HUGE drawback: it F has no ELEVATORS anywhere so it is impossible for people with limited mobility to use it: old people, parents with baby strollers, disabled people....
May be late in commenting this, but great walkthrough on the video! As someone who has been on the Paris metro system multiple times, I like how it is easy to connect with multiple lines and keep the city moving, especially with the metro line extensions, including the Grand Paris Express project taking place to expand the whole networking system as a whole My favourite part of the metro system is the automated rubber-tyre lines, with lines 4 and 14 being my preferred lines on the network, although using rubber tyres aren’t the best in terms of reliability usage. But nonetheless, it accelerates and decelerates in a quick matter of seconds and having the ability to move quietly and smoothly if you compare to the steel wheels that take up the majority of the Paris metro system which is a benefit That’s my take on this video, although there’s some downsides; the gates are small to access through, making pickpockets a easy target to take advantage, as well as you can’t use contactless/bank cards to travel on the network, like you can use them on the London Underground and some parts of the national rail. That’s something that I would like to see the RATP implement that in some way or shape of form
Awesome video! It's a very good synthesis of the stuff to know about the Paris Metro! With regard to the frequency of the trains, line 1 at the busiest hours runs a train every 40 seconds!
As someone who has lived in Paris, London, and Toronto, there are a few points you neglected to mention that are important about the Paris Metro. First, line two and line 6, when combined, effectively represent a circle line around the middle of the city. Someone who has not visited the city might be confused why the terminal point is so central, and not toward the outskirts of the city. Mentioning this might help them conceptualize this better. Second, the space underneath the elevated train lines has public utility. Unlike Chicago, these spaces are used for parking and also farmers markets during the week. Third, it's kind of interesting to consider how some of the underground lines were built repurposing decommissioned sewer tunnels. Overall I love this system for a million reasons it's definitely my favorite as well.
I've lived in the Paris region for 13 years and absolutely love the Métro system but when we do complain about trains, we mostly complain about the RERs that are not reliable. There has been much improvement on the RER A and B but the C and D are quite horrible to use. We are all hoping that the Grand Paris Express will lessen the problems we face with the RERs
@@jandron94 I'm glad that the lines are being built to give us an alternative to the RER C and D but on a personal note, I'm just looking forward to buying a car.
12:02 When I saw the map with the Grand Paris Express and the metro laid on top of each other, I don’t see why a western extension of line 10 isn’t happening, because the line looks to be a one stop extension to connect to the Grand Paris Express & maybe another stop could be created to connect with T2 - but having another stop will create very short stop spacing. Was this potential connection noticed? And if so, is there a reason this short extension isn’t happening? Because having a small extension like this good be very valuable.
Hello, i was looking at where is saint cloud stop of line 15 and the thing that after crossing the seine it gets hilly very fast so we would have to go under or over the seine and then go up very fast which might not be so easy to do for a metro same problem for Suresnes but made worst because it's higher in altitude and across from the forest
The M10 station was built in front of the Seine river bed without space to go underneath. So it would be a costly operation, but stop spacing is short but not unheard of in Paris. Also, line 10 is 500m from the T2 station I guess it did not justify itself and would indeed need a deep station under a fragile highway bridge
Paris may have one of the best metro systems but Lyon has the what is probably the most different transport modes in one city. Their metro includes one route that is part-time cog wheel (rack & pinion) and part-time adhesion. There are also several funiculars, trams, motor buses and trolleybuses (some of which operate as TBRT - TrolleyBus Rapid Transit on dedicated sections of road). Lyon is also the only city where a member of staff escorted me out of the station because I was using a camcorder to film the trains! Apparently it is seen as OK for the transport company to use cameras to film the passengers but they dislike passengers filming the trains.
Lyon’s public transit system is really cool for the reasons you mentioned, but Paris also has a funicular and tram lines, and the Parisian suburb of Créteil will soon be getting an urban gondola lift. To my knowledge, Paris doesn’t have trolleybuses though. And unlike in Paris, the trams in Lyon serve the city centre. One thing that Paris has that Lyon doesn’t have but could really use is a frequent RER network serving more distant suburbs.
I’m in Paris right now and been using the Metro everyday. The system is very extensive and the stations are beautiful. The only issues I had were the outdated fare system and the lack of air conditioning on the train car.
@@lilwill06 Really? NFC system exists for Navigo cards (monthly passes) since the 1990's, so they are really available everywhere. As a matter of fact, it's more single-use ticket readers which are no longer available in all stations. EDIT: or maybe you used something with a special fee like Orlyval?
Paris is such an awesome city. It has it all. Obviously the impressive transit network, but in the last decade or so it is quickly setting standards for walking and cycling policy. And that is next to the attractions that have drawn people to Paris for centuries like the architecture, art, food, fashion, business, media, industry, sports and events which are all world class. And I am happy to be able to travel there every now and then in about 3h flying through northern Frances countryside in a 300km/h Thalys train :-)
Paris has a great Public Transport network but it is a shame the trains are small and therefore fully packed, they are dirty and hot (very few lines have AC). I think the fact of manually opened doors can be a safety issue, more so if you think they can be opened when the train has not completely stopped yet. Even the stations are really in need of a deep cleaning, there is mould on the walls almost everywhere, except for the new ones, and you can easily smell urine stink. Trains on the RER lines need to be updated as well: most of them do not have any baggage storage and the seats are really old and filthy. I hope that they will not limit themselves to expand the lines but also to update the existing ones.
Hey Reece, If you watch RS Live's latest video on tunneling of RRTS corridor, he was allowed to enter the tunneling shaft and make video there. I think this is the support and openness of transit agencies that you were talking about in your rant stream. A small youtuber was allowed to in there and film shows that team NCRTC respects and appreciated his efforts on raising awareness of the size and scale of project that they are implementing. Also he and some transit friendly news channels can be credited to inform people that this is NOT any other metro line that is being built. Also this not the first time, he was also allowed to go on the elevated viaducts where the track laying work was underway and he filmed that as well. Now looking at that would you consider moving to Delhi?😂
SGP company running GPE works allow for the same kind of thing to be made, journalists and groups of people can contact them to visit the construction sites. A French youtuber (MrBidouille) was also allowed on a RER E Tunnel Boring Machine a while ago.
Nice video ! I feel really glad to have this great metro in my city of Paris ! Just one thing you could have mentionned is the station Art et Métier on metro line 11 which is absolutely gorgeous !
So London was inspired by Paris' RER to build Crossrail, and Paris was inspired by the London Overground (maybe to a lesser extent) to build the Grand Paris Express.
Except that of the 4 new automated lines of the GPE, M15 & M16 are entirely deep underground, like most of M17 and two thirds of M18. M18 being viaduct elevated on its above ground portion far away in the outer suburbs. Quite different from the trenches and service or layout of the London Overground. The filliation for line M15 comes more from Tokyo's Yamanote line in that it's a loop around and outside the center linking major business, shopping and leisure districts / centers and major exchanges to a truckload of mass transit lines. The big difference being it's 90% deep underground while Yamanote is above ground. Although, we could say RER C is a kind of (mostly covered in the center) Overground or ThamesLink as, despite being officially a RER, the C line doesn't have most of what's usually associated with a RER (no deep purpose built cross-city tunnels, no freakishly huge interchange stations). Also the way RER C crosses the river on a bridge after a station located almost on the banks of the Seine, runs in trenches in the SouthWest and meanders on the far reaching ends really feels like ThamesLink or Overground inspired. To me RER C is the most Londonesque line in Paris.
As a French National. I’m truly happy to see people looking behind the first appearance of the Paris Metro system (Old and Dirty). It makes me appreciate it even more. But like said in the video, the main issue I have with it would be accessibility (trolley, luggages, wheelchairs etc…) it really is a hassle.
Also, you can make a video talking about the suburban train system in Barcelona. (FGC, Linea del Vallés) You do such a very, very, very good work in your videos.😃
I live there - it's fantastic if you live near one of the frequent stop lines, which connects to a high speed line. They need to install more 14 lines going diagonally
When I lived in Paris during my studies long ago, lots of my mates thought of it as a kind of wormhole that would take them from A to B in no time at all and used it all the time. I soon realized that Metro trips do take time (to the station, to the platform, the wait...) - especially when changing trains is involved. So I walked all trips up to 3 kms - it was just as fast and I got to know the city a lot better. For further trips, however, the Metro is just fine - reliable and reasonably priced, albeit pretty crowded and stuffy at peak times It's a pity they're phasing out the cardboard tickets soon - they've been a constant whenever I came back to visit 😕
As a Parisian, I don't regret the tickets. People used to throw them away on the ground and since they involved complex mechanics rather than electronics, the gates were more prone to break, so for the RATP, electronic cards mean less maintenance, which is good, because so much is in constant need of repair, most notably the elevators/staircases. Also for the user, it's more convenient to charge a card than to carry tickets. All these advantages are why pretty much every metro system in the world has switched to something similar.
While you were talking about French Systems I think it would be interesting to look at the entire public transit system of Lyon. There are only 4 metro lines but there are several tram lines and a few funiculars
4 metro lines for a city of 2 million people isn't such a small number! Even in Europe there are many cities of similar size which don't have that many metro lines. Not to mention the city is also served by 7 modern tram lines and pretty iconic funiculars.
Lifting that latch on the older train doors has a popping sensation that is so satisfying 😂. Those doors tend to slam shut very hard so you have to stand clear.
As someone who lives and goes to school around the eastern branch of the RER A, I am really looking forward to the Grand Paris project, especially the line that will cross Noisy-Champs and Val de Fontenay. The line can really get busy during rush-hour, and I'm sick of having to cross Paris when I want to go to the northern or southern suburb.
As a parisian (sort of, I don't live within the Périphérique) I find it strange that you didn't talk more about the RER because while they are not called "metro", they are very much interconnecting parts of the metro system. I'd consider them more as a "metro" than the future line 18 for instance
I think you didn't mention it but in the RATP/ Paris transit zoning the métro has an anomaly: All métro Stations are in Zone urbaine. Even those outside of the périphérique. A RER ride to La Défense costs much more than taking the métro. I think they discussed once about changing that but then every métro station would also need exit gates (like in London) or like in the RER system.
with the paper ticket demise, at one point they will have to go to something similar to the TfL Oyster Card. The Navigo card as it is just can't cover everything.
@@tenalafel That has nothing to do with the zones ;-) do you think they will introduce different fares for distance at the métro? I cannot imagine that - Les parisiens would protest very loudly...
@@PascalGienger for Zones 1 & 2 they will keep a single fare because as you pointed it would be the revolution, but if they want to integrate the RER, the choices are limited and the ticket prices are already based on distance. For example : my RER B ticket to Paris is 2.9€ [ when bought by ten, as a single ticket it's 3,10€... and it might be more expensive now, since the price usually change on July 1st ] from Massy Palaiseau RER B [ it's more expensive using RER C as the travel is longer, I don't remember the price as it's more expensive and takes way longer than the B ] ) Right now the tickets are staying on the RER because the nightmare called Navigo never considered the occasional users that buy tickets and don't use a yearly/monthly/weekly pass or the tourists that go with a tourist pass.
@@tenalafel In NYC/NY Agglo it is worse as the fare systems are completely different and there is no common card. The closest offering to a RER are the LIRR and the Metro North lines. Both with different zones, you cannot even get a ticket from Long Island to Poughkeepsie despite both services are run by the same MTA as the NYC subway which knows - like in Paris - only one zone regardless of distance. And then you have NJ transit, another tariff system as it's in another state.
@@tenalafel The Liberté + version of the Navigo is shaping up to be similar to the Oyster. While it's currently only pay-as-you-use for Paris proper I have seen that it will be expanded to all the IDFM systems by next year. That would at least solve it for French residents. For tourists there's still not a good option like the Oyster.
The station of Haussman-Saint-Lazarre-Auber is also a big gare with many correspondances. Indeed, there is so many that it includes some stations in itself. Indeed there is RER A at Auber, RER E at Haussmann-Saint Lazarre, Transilien J and L at Gare Saint Lazarre, Métro 7 and 8 at Opera, Métro 9 at Havre-Caumartin, Métro 12, 13 and 14 at Saint Lazarre and Métro 9 at Saint Lazarre, Havre-Caumartin and Opéra. This gare is really useful !
I think the biggest Pros of this system are: The big amount of lines and stations. The rolling stock is decently updated (it helps that Alstom is French). And IMO the biggest Pro is its ambitious expansion plan, as it makes me feel that the government is actually using the people's taxes in something important (unlike in sooooo many ciites around the world haha). I think the biggest Cons are that since it is an older system, the oldest lines have smaller trains than in new Metro systems, which translates to some overcrowding. Also, the fact that the stations are too close to each other leads to much slower service overall.
Today in the local press, extensive articles about how line 13 was significantly relieved by the extension of the 14 to the north . I'm happy for the users, honestly, they suffered like crazy all this time.
In Paris, capital of a country where strikes occur at the drop of a hat, they can automate their metro but even a suggestion of automation on London's tube causes strike threats.
@Valérian What do you think will happen for Paris after 2030? Will the momentum will be kept, this time more in tune with global warming adaptation on desire to reduce car dependency?
@@etbadaboum It's too soon to tell, but there are 2 metro extensions which are very likely in the 2030's. The first one is line 1 east extension from Château de Vincennes to Val de Fontenay. The second is line 10 southeastern extension from Gare d'Austeritz to Les Ardoines.
1 and 14 are full automated 4 will be converted next year (i think) and maybe in the future 13 and 11 but automatization cos hundred million and take 3 or 4 years x16 lines
You forgot a train station in the main train section, the "Paris-Bercy Bourgogne-Pays-d'Auvergne" station, next to "Gare de Lyon", it desserve only a small part of the center of France.
You certainly painted a positive picture for the Paris Metro which is deserves but when I used it in real life I found it to be incredibly claustrophobic (and this is coming from a native NYer who has taken rush hour trains for decades) .But is so small scale that even when not crowded it still felt uncomfortable in almost every way. The curvature/tight design of the stations and narrow platforms are anxiety inducing and then once you're inside a car its as though its made for kids. The folding seat option was a novelty to me bc it showcased how small the space was coupled with how ironically unlikely you are to able to use them anyway bc of the foot traffic. And last but not least what was mentioned also holds true which is that the stops are so close together that it led me to choose to walk to places as going through all of that for endless stop and gos for such short distances drove me mad with little to gain and of course its so beautiful and walkable above ground it was a no brainer that I forwent using it.
I'd love to see a video on Budapest! The second oldest metro in the world (if I'm not mistaken) and one of the best connected tram networks with an insane amount of lines. Happy to help too seeing I grew up in the city and go back regularly.
If you enjoyed this video make sure to check out the channels other explainers!
Hi,you forgetin mjor train station Paris-Bercy who desserve destination like Clermont ferrand
@@maxbarr3954 it's not a major station, it's mainly used for one train line, and it doesnt serve Clermont-Ferrand
How is Paris the best Underground Network? As London has many different Lines at different levels and loads of Underground Stations on each Line, plus more Major train Stations in London that go up to the Midlands, Wales, Scotland and the Eurostar from London St Pancras International to France, Belgium and Netherlands in Europe.
Will you (please!) also be producing an explainer on France’s expanding TGV network, and on how it fits into Europe’s broader high-speed rail network?
I’ll be relocating to Paris soon-not immediately, but relatively soon, around 2025-and I’ve realized with a start that it’s been over two decades since I last set foot in Paris.
When I was last there, I believe there were two TGV lines-I traveled south on one repeatedly-and high-speed rail elsewhere in Europe was a rarity, but sleeper cars all across Europe were still widely available and popular, while short-hop flights were rare and expensive.
My understanding is sleeper cars then died out, and short-hop flights (ugh) became the norm for travel in the late ‘00s and throughout the ‘10s.
But now I’m told France has something like _seven_ TGV lines, AND high-speed rail is available everywhere-including throughout Scandinavia, but not in the UK-sleeper cars are making a glorious comeback, short-hop flights are being phased out (thank goodness, what a time-waster those really are), and in theory I could ride a TGV to nearly any corner of France, or take nothing but high-speed rail from Paris all the way to northernmost Sweden!!
Soooo … if you could elaborate on this, and fill in the gaps, or just tell us more about France’s expanded TGV and its place in Europe’s high-speed rail network, it’d be much appreciated!
I’m planning on going … EVERYWHERE!! … from 2025 through 2032.
Why don't you do a transit battle between NYC and Paris?
I think most importantly what the Métro does for Paris is make it so interconnected and therefore easy to get around (assuming, as you mention, accessibility is not a concern). Rarely will you find yourself more than a few blocks away from _multiple_ stations within the center city, and you can easily cover all corners of the city in a day, if needed.
Well, doing so by metro-means, so to say, is too expensive, this is the role for in-street PT. And this situation leads to large operational cost of maintenance of metro-system. Paris very much lacks of trams in its center which would be so much better for quick interconnection and connectivity, and accessibility. Its not practical to use potentially express kind of transportation like metro as local connectivity measure. That's why Paris metro are overcrowded (but this is the problem for many metros in the cities which abandoned trams in the city centers for the sake of "cars-must-run" ;)))
@@Whitebeard79outOfRus I'm parisian and I will disagree. The biggest problem with Paris' metro being overcrowded is the sheer density of the city, and the fact a lot of suburbanites use it.
Because we use our metro system basically like a very high capacity tram network. Adding trams would make it both redudant and less effective. Trams have a lower capacity, speed and debit. Though are far nicer than metros to take, I'll definitely agree with this. But inside Paris, basically all main metro (outside of the bis, it's complicated) move at the very least 200 000 person a day in a normal year.
What would be needed is both better intra-suburbs connexions, and higher speed lines of RER passing through Paris.
I may be wrong there and do completely agree that above earth, the bus transit is *bad* inside the city. But far better and quite effective when including the suburbs, with 354 lines, 12000 stations and a lot of lines with a very good regularity and bus coming under 10 minutes of wait. We do lack in the road infrastructure for bus only roads, but it's getting better every year.
@@marcbuisson2463 Yes, trams are nice but I agree in that I don’t think building tram lines in the centre of Paris would add much value. The metro already provides high-capacity local service. Better bus service would probably be cheaper and just as effective at providing accessible transit (if I remember correctly, all of the buses in Paris are accessible).
That said, I feel like you might be underselling the current bus system in Paris. Yes, frequencies aren’t as good as on the metro and buses can get stuck in traffic in places where they don’t have their own lane. But many of the bus stops are very well-designed; a lot of them even have screens showing when the next bus is coming. When I was living in Paris, I found that it was sometimes just as fast to take one bus to get from one place to another than it is to take two metro lines and spend time transferring. Perhaps providing better frequencies on certain bus lines and having more bus-lanes could make it an even more attractive service. I also wonder if an exception could be made for buses within their own bus lanes on streets that have recently had their speed limits lowered to 30km/h. The buses could perhaps be allowed to go 50km/h whereas private cars and trucks can go 30km/h.
One tram extension within Paris that I think would make a lot of sense is extending tram lines T3a and T3b to Nation, which would allow people to transfer between the tram and all the metro lines and RER A at Nation.
@@ethandanielburg6356 Unless it has changed already, getting rid of stupid, arbitrary and convoluted rules surrounding connections between different modes of transportation with a t+ ticket would probably do some good.
A couple of weeks before the first pandemic lockdown, I visited a friend near Paris. Before I left, we decided to visit the Orsay museum, in part because of how easy it is to go to the Austerlitz station from there. We got out of the museum a fair bit before the departure of the train I wanted to catch, just to be safe, and got to the RER station. Once we reached the platform, an agent told us that there is an abandoned shoe box in the RER and that they are evacuating the station, following the procedure. Fair enough, we go out of the station and try to take the metro. We walk briskly to the metro station nearby ; when I tried to go in with the ticket I had used to enter the RER station, I can't, because once you get out of the underground network, you are not allowed to connect back. I was already a little pissed, but I picked a second ticket and went on. Since the metro is slower than the RER, I didn't have that much time to complain.
For some reason, there was some issue on the 10 line, I don't remember what, and it had to stop. We were explained which buses nearby got the the main destinations on the line, and how to get there. We find the right bus stop easily, wait a few minutes, go in, I try to reuse my second ticket, and it doesn't work. The driver explains that connections between the metro and the bus on a single ticket are not allowed. I reluctantly use a third one, try to estimate how long it will take to arrive near Austerlitz and whether or not I will catch my train. I won't. And, soon after we entered the bus, there was an announcement that it wouldn't go all the way to Gare de Lyon, which didn't affect me personally, but adds to the absurdity of the situation.
In the end, I used three tickets for what was supposed to be a very straightforward trip and missed my train (which I could easily have done for free by walking there instead). I really felt like I was getting scammed. I know it was a very unlikely turn of events, one accident or abandoned luggage is a thing, three incidents in a row on the same short trip are another, and that it doesn't affect locals who have yearly subscriptions anyway, but I still think it is a shame to have such a good, interconnected network with lots of different modes of transportation just to discourage people to actually use these connections through tarification. I can't think of a single other city that uses the same tickets for different modes, but has so many different rules for which connections you can and cannot make, and for how long. These tickets are mostly used by people who aren't super familiar with the network, how are they this user unfriendly ?
@@filiaaut
I have a monthly subscription so I can't complain but for my parents who came for the holidays, I took a monthly subscription too so as to avoid the hussles you encountered even if they aren't going to use the métro that much. I was in Lille for two days and it has a one day, two days, three days options that allow you to use one relatively cheap ticket for métro, tramway and bus. I was so glad about it
9:50 Can I just recommend everyone going on line 6 when they are at Paris. The view when going from station Passy to Bir-Hakim (so going southbound) and seeing the Eiffel tower is just beautiful. Mightve been one of the most impressive views of the Eiffel Tower.
It absolutely is the best view in my opinion. At night when your catch it twinkling is amazing. Be sure to get a window seat on the left if you are heading south, and right if you are heading north. North-south is probably best for the view
Yeah whenever I need to take line 6 down that path I always make sure to get a window view of the tower cause it never gets old. Also, while not a metro, bus #69 (nice) is practically a tour bus. It crosses the Bastille, Rivoli, the Louvre pyramid, Orsay, Invalides, and has a terminus in front of the Eiffel Tower.
@@caseysmith4206 Or if you are willing to take a stroll ( and eventually pay a ticket, if you didn't take a Paris Visite/several day pass )... leave at either Passy or Bir-Hakeim, cross the bridge by foot ( you'll be under the subway ) and go back in at the other station.
I agree. 😊 Although line 6 is kind of old but still it works very well.
Yes, I agree with you! I think the most beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower is from the top of the Montparnasse Tower, (with the Defense in the background, it is incredible), but the view from line 6 is magnificent too (and far less expensive !).
I've been living in Paris for 2 years now. People complain a lot because the subway is often crowded, not extremely clean, and there might be a few delays from time to time but they don't realize how efficient it is, how lucky they are to have so many Subway lines and stations in such a small city
Thank you 🙏🏾 for looking past the aspect (crowded and Dirty) of one if not « the » oldest metro system in the world. The dense system makes it so that you are never ever more than 300m (~330yards) form a subway station in any direction
best in the world doesn't mean it doesn't suck. Just that every other one sucks a bit more.
@@jandron94 I live in the 5th arrondissement and that's my case but I'm 5 min away from a RER B (train) station, which is connecting CDG in the North to South suburbs, going by the hub Châtelet-Les Halles. The video is not going into details concerning the RER, which is also a fast moving solution, even inside Paris !
A small city ? What is a big city then ? 7 millions is a lot of people.
@@huquui8789 If you're referring to Paris it's a small city. A very dense one for its size indeed but small nonetheless : you can pretty much walk from north to south of it in 2h (not including cergy yo melun or whatever since it's not Paris itself). In comparison NYC is several times the size of it, and i doubt you'd go from one island to the very last in even a day. Los Angeles is 100+km too from N to S
As a Parisian transit nerd, this is probably the best explaining video on Paris metro I’ve ever seen ! Well done ! Just a minor correction on line 11 expansion : it contains 6 new stations on little less than 6 kilometres of tracks…
Ah yes, an oversight it seems!
@@RMTransit I think you got confused with the 4 other planned stations on the line 11 which didn't get funding yet (the Rosny-Bois-Perrier to Noisy - Champs section). They are still technically planned, so they may come to life one day !
Sounds like overkill. There is such as thing that if too many stations and stopping so frequent people walk or take something faster.
Bonsoir … non …
@xr6lad There’s nothing really faster than the metro in Paris, and most people use it daily… the ridership figures speak for themselves… sorry but you’re wrong in this case
As a 16-year-old Canadian from the Fraser Valley in BC, visiting Paris in 1999 was a transformative experience. A great deal of that came from the liberating factor of how easy it was to use the vast Paris Metro system. It remains the best in the world in my mind.
I'm a Brit - so always nervous compaining about others' pronunciations. But it really grated the way he said 'gare' as 'gair', instead of 'gar'. Is that the French Canadian pronunciation?
@@rogink I'm not sure. I live about 4,000 km west of Canada's main French-speaking Canadian regions and have never been to Quebec. My very limited French doesn't help. It's possible you're right though.
@@rogink As a French Canadian, no, we pronounce gare with an even deeper "a" then the French, meaning closer to "gore".
Who else thought he said he is now sixteen and went to Paris in 1999
Little detail: The loops with single-direction stations in lines 10 and 7bis were bulit as such to comply with a law at the time that obliged every household in Paris to have a metro station within a 500m radius.
Indeed, the served areas weren't even built-up back then in the end of the 19th century, so they considered a loop at the ending would be good enough. The loop on line 10 being eventually "broken" to extend the line to Boulogne.
The noise the metro makes in those square galleries to Boulogne is deafening ! I read 95db ! The engineers didn't foresee that when they built the extension.
What does bis stand for in 7bis?
@@seamusmckeon9109 It's a way of saying "two". It made its way into French (and English) from Latin, which took it from Greek, which took it from Sanskrit. Say you build a house between number 7 and 9. 8 is taken on the other side of the street, so the new house becomes 7bis. Same with the metro line.
The Paris métro has alwas been one of my favorites.
I especially love the older cars that in a way feel like buses on a subway, and with the old stations and really sharp turns (looking at you, line 1 at Bastille). The cherry on top is of course pulling the door lever and hopping off before stopping entirely.
That hopping off while the train is still moving will be missed when all those classic trains will disappear (very soon) !
What a beautifull comment, being born and raised in Paris, i got instant images, feelings and memories while Reading your comment, like the very curved Bastille station on ligne 1, i mean it's true, and seems to be the only station like that, and that feeling when holding up the door's lever and seeing those doors open while the metro is still moving and hoping off, i may add the noise of the comprised air being released signaling the doors can be open. Since then i've lived in city like Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne with their more modern metro which are very good, but the Paris metros speacially the old ones have a certain charm.
Yeah actually this is why I preferred to stand up because it's really fun to see the car behind you toss and turn on the sharp bends.
This little lever is disappearing on all lines, unfortunately. Ugly push buttons, now.
Interestingly, Munich still has the old wagons with wooden interior that the Paris metro had before the ones you see in this video. They were retired at the end of the 1970s.
Parisian here, loved this video! There’s so much to mention about this network since it gathered so many interesting quirks over the decades, but there’s too much to fit in a 20-minute video and you did a great job at laying out the essentials. Very refreshing to hear some positive looks at it
I was very happy to help ! The result is really awesome ! (Julian M.)
I was in Paris 3 months ago for the first time. I visited A LOT of landmarks, monuments in 2 days and half thanks to the metro systems. Tour eiffel, arc de triomphe, musee du louvre, les catacombes, the pantheon, montmartre, victor hugo's house, gardens of luxembourg, le sacre coeur, notre-dame... after this little holiday i was so tired (my feet were burning 😅), but also very happy, i love history, art, science and observing alive what i studied on books was so satisfying. Wish we had similar metro here in italy, but in the biggest cities like Milan and Rome there are only few lines... it's not so simple for people moving across the cities, and that's also why we italians use cars a lot and buses are overcrowded
True, the busses in Rome could be overcrowded
Hey it was so nice to hear about our beautiful metro system.
We're from Paris and always enjoy our metro system, especially when we discover other metro systems. We often go on "metro walks" where we go to discover new lines and stations and it is really unique.
Only thing we would add is the Paris Metro System only operates between 5am am midnight all week long, and 2am on the weekends. This is kinda stupid because some of our lines are fully automated and could just run all night just like the German light metro systems.
Come to visit Paris for the transportation, you will enjoy it so much !
Well, being fully automated doesn’t necessarily make operating overnight all that much easier! It often has more to do with the lines infrastructure design!
Thanks for watching!
@@RMTransit yeah, but we have to say it is one of the only downsides that the metro system has !
@@haraldlenudpilc A system needs to have down time for track maintenance when the system has only one set of tracks for each line. The New York Subway, on the other hand, has two sets of tracks for a line and therefore can run 24 hours.
@@RaymondHng on the other hand the New York subway is in an awful state of repair... Maybe they should close like a couple nights a week
@@RaymondHng But you can have downtimes in the week and 24hr service from Friday to Sunday. Would this be Possible with Paris Infrastructure? Berlin does it that way and I think the infrastructure is comparable.
I have been to Paris four times in the past 12 months. It is a city that is defined both by its rich history, and by the incredible feats of transportation engineering that everyone uses every day without really thinking about how remarkable they are. Thank you for the tour.
Love the Metro. The biggest issue with it is accessibility as you mentioned. Going on the Metro as a parent with young kids who are in a buggy is a less than fun experience. There's a lack of lifts and the fare gates are tight and shut really fast. It's still an epic system though.
Seems to be something that London underground has certainly paid attention to
I think a big accessible program will be in the works at some point. It will be pricey but very important!
yes it's a problem
and i think it will be complucated for some years
many stations are build in very narrow spaces and it's very complicated to build elevators for example
@@danielkelly2210 Pickpockets will be happy to help you solve the luggage problem...
Great you mentioned this issue. Visited paris a few weeks back and was hugely disappointed by the old rakes with too much noise around the curve and yes with the infrastructure like ticket gate, accessibility issue and its maintenance.
Thank you for a great video :) It's a pleasure watching you now from Ukraine, especially in this war time, when all our transit projects gave been stopped and a lot needs to be rebuilt. I hope you review some of the Eastern European transit systems in the future (in Poland, Czech Rep., Romania, Georgia, etc. - there will definitely be something interesting to review)
You should really cover the transilien commuter train network. It could be bundled in with the RER or as its own thing
don't all big cities have that kind of commuter rail? just without the RER
It’s less special than the RER and is a fairly standard commuter network but I probably will still make a video eventually
@@RMTransit id rather see videos about other cities
having been a frequent visitor to Paris in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I found the Metro fast and efficient. The naming and direction of travel being the ultimate destinations took a bit of getting used to. The frequent trains and interconnectivity were fabulous. Thanks for your feature on the up to date lines as well as the future ones.
I like that style of naming especially when lines don’t really follow a single geographic axis!
Here in cologne lines are numbered and display in which direction they're going by the last station, so it's not that uncommon
@@jan-lukas Not unusual, but as I said it took a bit of familiarisation, especially as I was unaware of the various locations. It was a learning curve.
Now the metro is much more dangerous, the great replacement of french per African and Arabic have been working at full speed since 1970-1980… so… much more crime.
I just came back from a trip to Paris. And I have to say, I was impressed by their public transport, not only metro, but trams, buses and trains as well. This video couldn't have a better timing!
The lack of trams in the center and on radial directions is the biggest problem of Paris PT. 'Coz only them are able to relish the overcrowded P-metro for reasonable price and time of construction. Hope that Ann Idalgo will do smthg about it
@@Whitebeard79outOfRus There will never be a tram in the Paris center. Or only in the Seine Bank. The streets are protected and iconic.
@@walideg5304 There's no law preventing it. It's more that there's just too much traffic (not only cars but also bikes, buses, delivery trucks and even pedestrians). As such it would probably be too slow to really compete with the metro which is already dense enough (as explained in the video). There are 2 tram lines which may be extended within central Paris though. The first one is T9 which may be expanded to Place d'Italie in order to connect with the multiple lines out there (M5, M6 and M7). The second one is T8 which will be expanded to Rosa Parks, it is considered to expanded further into Paris using former "petite ceinture" rail tracks. That would definitely make of it a super cool tramway line!
It's also interisting to note that only the central part of Line 13 and it's latest extensions are modern, because the line is a actually the unification of two lines in the 80': line 14 in the south and line 13 in the north
As a Parisian and fellow transit nerd, this is one of your best videos. Your map animation skills have greatly improved. The inclusion of metropolitan/regional context is a *very* nice touch. Great job, Reece!
The Paris Metro is my favorite Metro system in the world. There is no rush to run to the trains as often it happens that one train leaves the station, you already hear the next one coming. It is so quick and clear to use, making it going around Paris a breeze. The RER trains are one of the most "floating" like trains I have ever been on. Their ride quality when it comes to how smooth they go is unprecedented. Sure, not every line and every train is like that, but whenever I am in Paris I am amazed how smooth they run.
This was by far the best video that you ever presented. I was mesmerized throughout. The metro and interlinking rail systems were extensive. Well done! Congratulations to all.
Long have I waited for this one Reece ! I can can give you tour when you want.
Paris metro was originally designed as an underground tram on high platforms, that's why the stations are so close together (sometimes as close as 200 m from eachother) Certainly not the standard nowadays. The city and the State debated for 30 years on what to build, regional transit or municipal metro. The city won because of the Universal Exhibition and Olympics of 1900 looming nearer and nearer. Ironically the same kind of debate took place before the Grand Paris Express plan was layed out. Was the suburbian area to be equipped with a slow and frequently stopping metro or a RER style loop? The Region and the State debated for years before coming to a compromise, not perfect but that's still something.
Lines 10 and 7bis loops were made because the Law voted by the City imposed no point of the city would be more than 400 m away from a metro station. So in order to avoid building antennae lines or other lines, splitting a line in a loop about 500 m across was a reasonable compromise, not to forget those places also retain technical terrain difficulties, especially near the Buttes Chaumont park where the track is 30 m above an old Gypsum quarry while still being 25 m deep under the street ! The park itself is the opening of the quarry that has been transformed into a park during Haussemann overhaul of the city !
A simple mistake on your part, line 12 is now 31 stations long, a possible extension to the North could add up to 4 or 5 new stops -unlikely to be built anytime soon though. As well as 2 to 3 stations to the South, which would bring the line up to between 37 to 39 stations in total...
Line 11 is likely to be extended to Rosny early 2024, 6 months before line 14 big extension. However the second phase to Noisy is unlikely to be built soon as it is judged not cost effective as a ridership perspective, a shame.
As for line 15 I think I figured out how it will be run once finished. No need to make trains alternate between the two services (loop and antenna), Champigny station layout allows to do that with still running the trains from terminus to terminus by going twice on the Northern tracks (once per the loop and once terminating) and once on the Southern tracks to Noisy, the trains essentially run the loop TWICE and take the junction tunnels once to allow that trickkery; so a frequency of a train every 3 minutes from any of the termini will naturally give a 90 second frequency on the rest of the loop. Of course, automation can allow service reaffectation on the fly if necessary.
Nice explanations!
I will just add a few notes:
- line 12 extensions are as old as the Nord-Sud itself and some were planned precisely since the 30s and still not getting built... and the northern extension to Aubervilliers was planned to go to Saint-Denis back then.
- the 7bis bridge above the quarry is in fact a urban myth : it was filled in first, they they drove piles down the soil to reach the bedrock up to 14m below at Danube station and structure strengthening walls have been dug latterly at many places along the line. So it's not really a bridge in the conventional term but it reuses some of its techniques. iirc there is a maintenance gallery running under it.
- the line 11 extension was mostly thrown away due to the construction of lines 17 and 18, because TOD are already being built along this line which might never see the light of day...
- as for M15 service patterns, the video was based on what was said in one of the latest reports from GPE when they tried to dismantle the Champigny tracks allowing looping services. It will most probably be run as you told internally but it would be invisible to passengers anyway
Someone should breed a train enthusiast with an audiophile and see what we get.
Why so little amount of likes?
I'm Parisian and passionate about Transport, I find this video interesting and containing good information
Glasgow’s subway would be an interesting short video. 3rd oldest in the world, one single loop, miniature trains. Unchanged since opening in the late 19th century
Actually, whilst the route and size of the Glasgow Subway remains unchanged its trains and at some stations the platform layouts have changed. Soon it will be experiencing more major changes - new fully driverless trains, etc!
Just came back from Paris and I agree, it is truly a remarkable system.
My favorite part of the Paris metro is the manual door handles. The rotating knob you hold up as it approaches the station and instantly opens once the lock is released. So much more satisfying than tapping the green button on newer trains!
Soooo true 😂 And it's very stylish to open the doors like that before the train comes to a complete stop!
I love how I am able to access so much of Paris on such amazing Metro lines. There's that heat that hits you as you descend in to the area where subways come in! There's a unique scent and I love it - what a fabulous metro system. I love the complex details in your video! This is such fabulous history and I have learned so much. I appreciate this so much!! 🙂
About the scent, did you know from where it comes ?
to limit metallic particles in the air generating pollution and causing signalling problems, we use wooden brake pads dipped in vegetable oil (peanut for example) to protect them from fire and reduce breaking noise!
@@LeGrandJuju49 Is that what you use in Paris? Not sure which country you are in! It's not a bad scent - it's hard to describe - I think steam comes up from the underground in Paris and it could in part be a hot steam scent - a bit like the scent in the subway system in Manhattan!!! Transit is so fascinating.
@@christinecamley Sorry, I'm Julian and I live near Montparnasse station in Paris. Rubber tyred lines also have an additional smell coming from the old trains running on them on line 11 and 6. Line 1 and 4 have trains generating less heat and part of the odor left a bit.
@@christinecamley yes brake pads are made of oil scented wood.
There's also some specific scent added to the cleaning ingredients, that's the one most people notice.
The very important thing when it comes to Paris Subway scent is that it's all naturally aerated on the historic lines ( read : there's no fan pumping air from outside into the subway system ). Line 14 and modern extensions have fans moving air around as well as the RER A, B & D. ( C is not deep enough, the aeration is done by vents in the side opening in the walls over the Seine )
@@tenalafel Wow. Really interesting.
Thanks for such a fabulous, interesting video on the Paris Metro system!!
Thank you!
Just returned from Paris and I have to say it was so easy to get around every where within zones 1-3 using the Métro and the multitude of buses. I get that North America may not have the density of European cities, but man do I wish we could replicate something here for the GTA and Golden Horseshoe.
Berlin is as dense as Houston and has a similar population, but still has 9 subway lines and 16 s bahn lines
(as well as 22 tram lines and 200 bus lines)
Low density doesnt mean you cant have world class transit
Back when I lived in Paris (early 70s), they still had some trains where you had to lift the handle to open the door, and then actually PULL the sliding door open. The doors did close automatically. The newer trains had a handle you lifted to open the door, but it did open and close itself.
The original Vienna 1970's metro cars are like that, powered doors but with a mechanical handle to start. Later ones have a button, but none of them just all open and close like with most (?) subways.
Actually, back to the 1950s and 1960s, yes you had to manually open the doors, but they would close semi-automatically.
In addition to the driver, there was a second employee, who would stand by his open door, check that all doors were clear,
and then press a button which would active a pneumatic system pushing pistons at each door to close them. Then when the metro was at speed in the tunnel, the pressure would be deactivated (to save on wear and tear), so that conceivably... yes
you could open the doors while the train was running!
Lines 6, 10 ans 12 still have these doors !
They were on the RER B trains when I was going there in the early 2000s I think.
Fun ? fact : the line 6 metro is actually passing on the Bir-Hakiem bridge, which is the iconic bridge with the metallic pillars seen in Inception
Hi, I'm a Parisian French and I use Google translation so excuse me for the spelling mistakes so I wanted to congratulate you on your video because it explains the Paris metro very well the extensions the Grand Paris express the new trains the new material and the new lines So you have the certainty and the certification of a Parisian that your video is good continue like that you manage man
You translated "Tu gères mec"
I always enjoy opening manual doors on Paris metro before the train fully stops, this feature should be compulsory for all metro system
I love it too but this a kind of dangerous.
I love it too as I enjoy getting out of the train while it's still running. However I'm less of a fan now because covid made me a lot more paranoid. These things are touched by hundreds of different people every single day.
Hey there, I’d love to see you do a video on Salt Lake City’s transit system. It won lots of praise and awards for its expansion projects in the early-mid 2010’s but hasn’t really done anything major since. It’s not a very covered topic here on RUclips. It’s a pretty substantial network for a city of its size but I think it’s worth looking at. Thanks :)
Went to París a couple weeks ago for the first time. I was amazed at how good it was. Never even knew.
Thanks for all the effort put into the descriptions of each metro line. What I'd really like to know about is the philosophy (or lack of it), behind how the individual routes were chosen. In the London system, the attempt was for each line to interconnect with each other line just once, making the decision of where to change lines very easy. In the Paris system, everything is comparatively random, with I think two interconnection points between each line and every other line? Just compare the London and Paris maps!. Thanks for any clarification on how the routes were chosen.
Line 5's Gare d'Austerlitz stop is something straight out of Cities Skylines. The station is elevated and in the Gare d'Austerlitz station's roof, right under the glass ceiling.
Btw, if you haven't seen it, the massive works at Gare d'Austerlitz to renovate its structure are done and most of the scaffolds were removed, so you can finally see the beautiful glass ceiling, and see everything from the line 5 stop.
Perfect timing!! I'm going to Paris tommorow for a few days to explore the metro, thank you!
Enjoy!
Lines 4, 12 and 14 already have some extensions open.
The most recent line M12 (North end) new stations are quite weird aesthetically speaking.
They are whiter than a dentist office...
Not really convinced by the design choice to be honest.
But the recent new stations on the North end of line M14 are really nice and the new ecofriendly / vegetalized neighborhood served by the new M14 Pont Cardinet and Porte de Clichy stations has great buildings and stunning views.
(It's rue Mstislav Rostropovich and neighboring park up to Avenue de Clichy to the East and the "stepped tower" of the new main courthouse to the North).
Being GPEx-adjacent, all existing M11 stations have been modified and upgraded to be ready for the major extension of the line to the East, up to M15, opening in a few months.
If you haven't been in Paris for some time, there are a bunch of new Tram lines in the suburbs : T9, departing from Porte de Choisy (13th district) is particularly nice and well done.
If you need tips and advice, don't hesitate !
A comment said it above but I highly recommend you to take the line 6 and pass throught stations Passy and Bir-Hakim for the magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower. The line passes above the Seine and at night, it's way more beautiful !
One of the few things I remember from my French lessons at school is that gare is pronounced gar like car, not gare like mare, because guerre (French for war) is pronounced the latter way
I noticed this too, the host is Canadian, perhaps this is the Quebec way to say the word "gare"?
@@imsbvs No, it's not the Quebec way at all. Reece's mother tongue is English and he's from British Columbia I think.
@@FreewayFranks Reece: "Yew-Bahn"!
@@emjayay What?
@@FreewayFranks U-Bahn with the U pronounced like in English, not as 'oo' like in German.
Just returned home from Paris. Metro is quite the experience coming from the small Hamburg public transport.
I was surprised to read that Hamburg unlike many other German cities got rid of its tram network in 1978! Still the city has nearly 1,000 km of U and S-Bahn which for a 5+ million metropolitan area is really good.
Basically, the Parisian metro was built to serve the Parisians (there was even an abandoned concurrent project that should only connect the railway stations, but it was useless for the population of Paris, it was imagined to serve mainly the train users).
It has two main features :
- wherever you live in Paris, you must have a station in a 500 meters perimeter around your home,
- wherever you want to go in Paris, from the point you are in the city, you'll have at most two metro changes.
These two features are, in my opinion, the reason why the Parisian metro is one of the best in the world.
Just back from Paris where i went to a PSG game and agree the metro is fantastic. No issues ! Loved Paris! 🇫🇷
And you should cover the Transilien (Commuter rail) and RER as a whole because they are actually ran together.
I mean as a single Network
Ah, I really think the RER needs special distinction! Transilien is a fairly standard commuter network but the RER….
@@RMTransit Yeah but there are some examples (The U line) that helps to connect the lines together without going through the core of the urban area (especially Châtelet - Les Halles Station), and in some trains (RER C and D, operated by SNCF) the RER lines are mentioned as different lines, but still a part of the Transilien network (Even though they are more conventional than RER, but still frequent and running high capacity trains). and on some corridors, the transilien lines operates as express RER lines that can also be express metro line etc.. etc...
@@RMTransit Interesting fact about RER and Transilien is that some RER are Transilien lines. For the moment 2 operators run the rails services in Paris, SNCF and RATP. SNCF being the national operator, they created brands to differenciate their activies : TGV (high speed trains), TER (Regional train), Intercités (long distance low speed trains) and Transilien (Paris/Ile de France). So, the lines they operates in Paris (Train lines H,J,K,L,N,P,R,U, Tramway lines T4 and T11 and RER lines C,D and E) are all branded Transilien. For the line A a small section is operated by SNCF so only this part is Transilien and the rest of the line is operated by RATP. The line B is split in two, half is run by RATP and the other half is run by SNCF (so Transilien).
For St denis pleyel, the station is, according to what I could have as info until then (not 100% so) built in 1 block. Basically, the level of the tracks is in a single room, like chatelet les halles.
Which means that when the M14 opens there, we will be able to see the platforms and tracks of the M15-16-17 but deserted, then with test trains, then the accesses will open one after the other. And for Orly it will be the same.
EDIT: at 20:00 the corridor starting in bend, is the old tunnel which linked line 3 and 3bis (which was the old route of line 3)
This is What will happen in Orly for sure. At Saint Denis Pleyel, this is very plausible. The only other technique is what they did in 1981 when they built Gare du Nord underground RER B station : they built both halves separately then broke through the wall between the two at key locations.
Went to Paris 6 yrs ago and as I love train travel was blown away how brilliant the whole rail system was in Paris especially the Metro system .We also took the TGV down to Nice ,amazing .Full marks for a thorough and incredible explanation of Paris's Metro .
Few things I think you missed: 1. Paris Metro trains run on the right. This is significant because mainline trains in France run on the left. Including RER.
2. While oldest trainsets have 4 doors per car, the newer ones have three much wider doors per car. This means that lines with platform screen doors cannot use the oldest trains, so these were moved to other lines during convertions.
3. Another reason that line 4 is so busy is that it is the onlly line to stop at Ile de la Cite just in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral. It is also the one line thst stops twice within Chatelet-Les Halles complex.
The story behind theses points is interesting :
1. Paris metro run on the right because it is an emanation of tramway engineering and not mainline train engineering, hence it runs right-handed as tramways used to. Also, some mainline trains run on the right-hand side in Alsace and Lorraine.
2. choosing the between 4 small doors (angled on 60s trains car ends, which is quite unique!) or 3 wide doors already happened before the 60s too. interestingly, with people growing taller, and how French people stand in front of doors, the 3 wide doors per car was choose as superior since the late 70s. But even between 3 doors car trains, they are not positioned the same. As such, line 13 PSDs will need to be demolished and rebuilt for new MF19 trains...
3. This is not the reason at all, as Cité station doesn't see that much traffic compared to other stations : the line connects together 3 major railway stations and Les Halles. The line is very busy from people leaving Transilien services at Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est and Gare Montparnasse and heading towards Chatelet and back mostly.
@@LeGrandJuju49 well, last time I was in Paris (and that was two weeks ago give or take) there was a lot of people on the cite station. But mostly what I ment was that serving a super touristy spot on top of these connections is what pushes the line even further into the busy land. As for Alsce-Lorraine I beluve mainland trains run there on the right because the biggest railway construction period in Europe was roughly from 1860's to 1910's and the region spent most of this time as part of Germany (between Franco-Prussian war and WWI) which runs it's trains on the right.
@@mancubwwa Exactly ! And we then were too lazy to rebuild signals and stations for running on the other side (cost), so we built overpasses to connect it to the rest of the network.
And about line 4, I live on it and use it every day to go to and from work. Cité serves the Cathedral but also the Police prefecture and the former court, but RER B does the same and the proximity with places where it's nice to walk around makes people go there by other means. Although, many tourist groups use M4 but it's nothing (2 109 969 persons entering per year) compared to chatelet (13 466 536 persons entering per year) or even Odeon (5 896 554 persons entering per year) for example. (data RATP numbers)
@@LeGrandJuju49 and RER C, it's not as if the bridge was long to cross from the C exit.
@@LeGrandJuju49 Line 13 PSDs will be taken off and replaced by Line 4 style PSDs also because the 1.70m high PSDs were deemed insufficient at their job to prevent passenger to get on the tracks, plus Line 13 platforms were not enhanced properly as Line 1, 4 and 11 were (yes Line 11 was remade to accomodate PSDs because when the GPX project was launched, the line was supposed to be automated but it won't likely happen unless the line is extended to Noisy)
I like that once you know the London underground you can easily navigate Paris as they have an almost identical map layout and station signs. The London map makes so much sense that the Paris Metro took the same approach. Oh and London had the world's first underground railway.
Very nice video ! Thank you for taking the time to make it ! You just forgot to mention a small train station in Paris at the begining of the video : the Bercy train station 🙂
It talk about itself :
- The busiest train station in Europe is the Gare du Nord with around 292m passengers/year
- The biggest underground station in the world is Châtelet-Les Halles with around 120 trains/hour at peak hours (1 trains every 1 to 2 seconds)
- The most complex interchange hub and one of the most complex in Europe is the Saint-Lazare - Auber Hub linking 2 RER lines, 2 Transilien lines, 7 Métro lines and all Normandy trains.
- The most dense transit line in Europe is the RER A line with a ridership of around 1,4m passengers/day
- The 5th most crowded transit line in the world is the Line 13 with 600.000 passangers/day
What? 120 trains per minute? I think you ment 120 trains per hour.
In terms of trains per hour, Châtelet-Les Halles is also the second busiest in Europe after Clapham Junction, which has 126 per hour. Clapham of course is not underground.
@@kartik_sinha yes 120 trains per hour. In theory 36 trains each way per hour peak for the RER B & D they share the tunnel between CLH and Gare du Nord, so it's a huge limiting factor, if each had it's own tunnel it. Add the RER A ( 24 to 36 trains per hour and way ).
Since it's almost impossible to reach 36 trains per hour in the CLH/GdN tunnel due to the various issues on each line on average that 7 tracks underground station sees 120 trains per hour.
The station could see more trains if the CHL/GdN tunnel was doubled to allow RER C and RER D separation... that's a main chokepoint for both line that will have to be addressed at some point as it impacts both line regularity and performance.
Yeah, for sure its traffic is very important, and as you says, it's becamed highly overcrowded over the years because it's too centralized on Paris while the number of suburb to suburb trips is becoming more important. This why a new network such as the Grand Paris Express was necessary to decentralize activities and the transit network while linking the major activity centers and give a new option for suburb to suburb trips. As someone living in Île de France, I'm looking forward to this since I use the network a lot when I need to go somewhere and I hope it will fix the actual status.
Note: Counting the Transilien (1300km) and the Réseau Express Régional (585km), Paris or the Île de France urban rail network length is at 2100km, 2300km counting the Grand Paris Express for the part that will be in service in 2030.
The IDF network also as really developed tram and express tram (train-tram) network with over 156km of tramways.
@@richardwills-woodward Big difference between Paris and London or Tokyo is density. Paris is at 20k inhabitants per km² for its metro area while London is at 3,9k and 6,2k. Useful to have them in mind when comparing network length. I think it also affects train length too indirectly.
Leave it to Franceland to continuously expand what is already one of the best metro systems in the world. Just picture if NYC or Chicago had that kind of determination.
NYC has extended two lines by a few stations in 50 years. One line stops halfway down Brooklyn for no reason.
Definitely one of the best metro systems, there are so many lines going into and out of the city in various directions, and the city center is laced with so many stations that you barely have to walk from one place to another. Loved it when I visited, and the littering and scammers aside, a great experience to ride. Some of the stations like le chatelet and gare du nord are huge!
As a French, I'm happy with this video but I immediately wonder about China (I know your arguments about Tokyo) because there are many, many Chinese cities with immense metro network and gigantic future expansion plans like Beijing or Shanghai with over 1,000 km of lines envisioned! (9 of out 10 biggest metro networks in the world are Chinese) But also smaller cities like Wuhan with 12M people (like Paris metropolitan area) and its more than 400 km of metro network and over 300 km of planned future expansion!
Hey, it's a really nice video about Paris metro. I think you make one about the underrated Transilien blended with the RER as lines C,D,E are part of its network, now (Line A and B being part of the transilien on half of the line for each (other halfs are operated by RATP)).
What also is really great of the paris metro is close to Opera station. It contains a big shaft/chamber of 20 meters high with 3 lines crossing each other on various depths. It's line 3, 7 and 8. I am amazed about the construction which was done early 1900
I don’t know whether this is still the case … but when I was growing up, France supplied the trains to our first subway system in Caracas, Venezuela. I rode on one of the inaugural rides, when it opened in ‘82 or ‘83 (I forget which year exactly), and it was sleek and modern and beautiful. I believe we used rubber tires, too, so it was also quite quiet!
Quite a contrast to visiting my grandmother in Chicago, Illinois, and riding what were then often 30-year-old or even 40-year-old cars, built in the ‘40s and ‘50s with wicker seats and accordion doors and no a/c, screeching noisily around on steel tracks elevated up on wooden beams built over 100 years ago!!
Having since moved to Illinois myself, I’ve grown quite fond of our el (and we did get new cars in the late ‘80s, shortly after I relocated), but what a contrast … the USA really does need to give more love to its public transportation.
As to the use of elevated rail in the Paris Metro, it was actually something of a war between the two modes (subway vs. elevated) where Parisian transit advocates passionately argued about them.
There is also the conflict between the State--which wanted a large underground train system to facilitate military movements--and Paris, which wanted a localized transit-oriented system. Paris sneakily won by building its tunnels narrower than the standard gauge of the time, blocking out the mainline railways from the system.
Parisians passionately arguing? Unpossible!
Same thing in Britain... They use the same TRACK gauge as the continent, but their trains are narrower, so that their
[military] trains can be used on the continent (e.g., to invade), but continental ones cannot be used in England (they cannot be invaded). Smart,. right ?
@@emileokal7752 I thought the best defense they ever had outside the Royal Navy was the pre decimalised currency system. Legend had it that German spies in WWII were caught by getting befuddled by pence/farthings/etc.
Paris's metro is indeed historic, dense and nostalgic with one HUGE drawback: it F has no ELEVATORS anywhere so it is impossible for people with limited mobility to use it: old people, parents with baby strollers, disabled people....
The original metro line is the metropolitan line (where metro comes form), The original subway is the tower subway (long closed near Tower of London)
Excellent video! Looking forward the RER explained video!
Also worth mentioning and a real highlight for me is how they announce the stations inside the trains 🙂
Yes... twice and with a slightly different tonality, the second one always sounding a bit resigned 😀
So does London - the first and oldest
May be late in commenting this, but great walkthrough on the video! As someone who has been on the Paris metro system multiple times, I like how it is easy to connect with multiple lines and keep the city moving, especially with the metro line extensions, including the Grand Paris Express project taking place to expand the whole networking system as a whole
My favourite part of the metro system is the automated rubber-tyre lines, with lines 4 and 14 being my preferred lines on the network, although using rubber tyres aren’t the best in terms of reliability usage. But nonetheless, it accelerates and decelerates in a quick matter of seconds and having the ability to move quietly and smoothly if you compare to the steel wheels that take up the majority of the Paris metro system which is a benefit
That’s my take on this video, although there’s some downsides; the gates are small to access through, making pickpockets a easy target to take advantage, as well as you can’t use contactless/bank cards to travel on the network, like you can use them on the London Underground and some parts of the national rail. That’s something that I would like to see the RATP implement that in some way or shape of form
Awesome video! It's a very good synthesis of the stuff to know about the Paris Metro! With regard to the frequency of the trains, line 1 at the busiest hours runs a train every 40 seconds!
As someone who has lived in Paris, London, and Toronto, there are a few points you neglected to mention that are important about the Paris Metro. First, line two and line 6, when combined, effectively represent a circle line around the middle of the city. Someone who has not visited the city might be confused why the terminal point is so central, and not toward the outskirts of the city. Mentioning this might help them conceptualize this better. Second, the space underneath the elevated train lines has public utility. Unlike Chicago, these spaces are used for parking and also farmers markets during the week. Third, it's kind of interesting to consider how some of the underground lines were built repurposing decommissioned sewer tunnels. Overall I love this system for a million reasons it's definitely my favorite as well.
I've lived in the Paris region for 13 years and absolutely love the Métro system but when we do complain about trains, we mostly complain about the RERs that are not reliable. There has been much improvement on the RER A and B but the C and D are quite horrible to use. We are all hoping that the Grand Paris Express will lessen the problems we face with the RERs
@@jandron94
I'm glad that the lines are being built to give us an alternative to the RER C and D but on a personal note, I'm just looking forward to buying a car.
12:02
When I saw the map with the Grand Paris Express and the metro laid on top of each other, I don’t see why a western extension of line 10 isn’t happening, because the line looks to be a one stop extension to connect to the Grand Paris Express & maybe another stop could be created to connect with T2 - but having another stop will create very short stop spacing. Was this potential connection noticed? And if so, is there a reason this short extension isn’t happening? Because having a small extension like this good be very valuable.
That is something I’m sadly not sure of….
@@RMTransit I know, I just noticed that when looking at the map… As always, great video!
Hello, i was looking at where is saint cloud stop of line 15 and the thing that after crossing the seine it gets hilly very fast so we would have to go under or over the seine and then go up very fast which might not be so easy to do for a metro same problem for Suresnes but made worst because it's higher in altitude and across from the forest
@@clementbouvard8457 Ok, thank you for the clarification.
The M10 station was built in front of the Seine river bed without space to go underneath. So it would be a costly operation, but stop spacing is short but not unheard of in Paris. Also, line 10 is 500m from the T2 station I guess it did not justify itself and would indeed need a deep station under a fragile highway bridge
Paris may have one of the best metro systems but Lyon has the what is probably the most different transport modes in one city.
Their metro includes one route that is part-time cog wheel (rack & pinion) and part-time adhesion.
There are also several funiculars, trams, motor buses and trolleybuses (some of which operate as TBRT - TrolleyBus Rapid Transit on dedicated sections of road).
Lyon is also the only city where a member of staff escorted me out of the station because I was using a camcorder to film the trains! Apparently it is seen as OK for the transport company to use cameras to film the passengers but they dislike passengers filming the trains.
Lyon’s public transit system is really cool for the reasons you mentioned, but Paris also has a funicular and tram lines, and the Parisian suburb of Créteil will soon be getting an urban gondola lift. To my knowledge, Paris doesn’t have trolleybuses though. And unlike in Paris, the trams in Lyon serve the city centre.
One thing that Paris has that Lyon doesn’t have but could really use is a frequent RER network serving more distant suburbs.
I’m in Paris right now and been using the Metro everyday. The system is very extensive and the stations are beautiful. The only issues I had were the outdated fare system and the lack of air conditioning on the train car.
What about the fare system? Now we have rechargeable cards like anywhere else.
@@augth It wasn’t available at every station so I had to get tickets
New trains with air conditioning are planned in the coming years, on all lines where there are not yet.
@@lilwill06 Really? NFC system exists for Navigo cards (monthly passes) since the 1990's, so they are really available everywhere. As a matter of fact, it's more single-use ticket readers which are no longer available in all stations.
EDIT: or maybe you used something with a special fee like Orlyval?
Brilliant video sir!
Paris is such an awesome city. It has it all. Obviously the impressive transit network, but in the last decade or so it is quickly setting standards for walking and cycling policy. And that is next to the attractions that have drawn people to Paris for centuries like the architecture, art, food, fashion, business, media, industry, sports and events which are all world class. And I am happy to be able to travel there every now and then in about 3h flying through northern Frances countryside in a 300km/h Thalys train :-)
Loads of work to make to nice to cycle in though! Let's see what they can offer for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Paris has a great Public Transport network but it is a shame the trains are small and therefore fully packed, they are dirty and hot (very few lines have AC). I think the fact of manually opened doors can be a safety issue, more so if you think they can be opened when the train has not completely stopped yet. Even the stations are really in need of a deep cleaning, there is mould on the walls almost everywhere, except for the new ones, and you can easily smell urine stink. Trains on the RER lines need to be updated as well: most of them do not have any baggage storage and the seats are really old and filthy. I hope that they will not limit themselves to expand the lines but also to update the existing ones.
Hey Reece,
If you watch RS Live's latest video on tunneling of RRTS corridor, he was allowed to enter the tunneling shaft and make video there.
I think this is the support and openness of transit agencies that you were talking about in your rant stream.
A small youtuber was allowed to in there and film shows that team NCRTC respects and appreciated his efforts on raising awareness of the size and scale of project that they are implementing. Also he and some transit friendly news channels can be credited to inform people that this is NOT any other metro line that is being built.
Also this not the first time, he was also allowed to go on the elevated viaducts where the track laying work was underway and he filmed that as well.
Now looking at that would you consider moving to Delhi?😂
Have you blocked links or something? I am not able to post the link to that video
@@kartik_sinha that is yt problem i think , not his own . though i could be wrong
SGP company running GPE works allow for the same kind of thing to be made, journalists and groups of people can contact them to visit the construction sites. A French youtuber (MrBidouille) was also allowed on a RER E Tunnel Boring Machine a while ago.
@@LeGrandJuju49 most agencies but TTC allow this . He was frustrated about it in a live stream and so when I saw this I shared it.
Great video indeed👍. From my experience, the Metro is also Paris best daily workout 😄.
Nice video ! I feel really glad to have this great metro in my city of Paris ! Just one thing you could have mentionned is the station Art et Métier on metro line 11 which is absolutely gorgeous !
So London was inspired by Paris' RER to build Crossrail, and Paris was inspired by the London Overground (maybe to a lesser extent) to build the Grand Paris Express.
Except that of the 4 new automated lines of the GPE, M15 & M16 are entirely deep underground, like most of M17 and two thirds of M18. M18 being viaduct elevated on its above ground portion far away in the outer suburbs.
Quite different from the trenches and service or layout of the London Overground.
The filliation for line M15 comes more from Tokyo's Yamanote line in that it's a loop around and outside the center linking major business, shopping and leisure districts / centers and major exchanges to a truckload of mass transit lines. The big difference being it's 90% deep underground while Yamanote is above ground.
Although, we could say RER C is a kind of (mostly covered in the center) Overground or ThamesLink as, despite being officially a RER, the C line doesn't have most of what's usually associated with a RER (no deep purpose built cross-city tunnels, no freakishly huge interchange stations).
Also the way RER C crosses the river on a bridge after a station located almost on the banks of the Seine, runs in trenches in the SouthWest and meanders on the far reaching ends really feels like ThamesLink or Overground inspired.
To me RER C is the most Londonesque line in Paris.
As a French National. I’m truly happy to see people looking behind the first appearance of the Paris Metro system (Old and Dirty).
It makes me appreciate it even more. But like said in the video, the main issue I have with it would be accessibility (trolley, luggages, wheelchairs etc…) it really is a hassle.
Also, you can make a video talking about the suburban train system in Barcelona. (FGC, Linea del Vallés) You do such a very, very, very good work in your videos.😃
Yes enough with capital cities, we want to see Barcelona and Marseille and Glasgow!
@@zied6456 Give Reece some rest! His output is incredible and he'll get there eventually.
@@etbadaboum Dégages le troll!
I appreciate the system a lot. It has it fair share of issues which makes my life harder sometimes but overall I can get to work no matter what.
I live there - it's fantastic if you live near one of the frequent stop lines, which connects to a high speed line. They need to install more 14 lines going diagonally
Line 14 also relieves overcrowding on Line 13.. Man when it was closed for scheduled maintenance when I was there, getting on line 13 was suffering.
Going to Paris soon and thank you. Your explanation made all the sense in the world easier.
When I lived in Paris during my studies long ago, lots of my mates thought of it as a kind of wormhole that would take them from A to B in no time at all and used it all the time.
I soon realized that Metro trips do take time (to the station, to the platform, the wait...) - especially when changing trains is involved. So I walked all trips up to 3 kms - it was just as fast and I got to know the city a lot better.
For further trips, however, the Metro is just fine - reliable and reasonably priced, albeit pretty crowded and stuffy at peak times
It's a pity they're phasing out the cardboard tickets soon - they've been a constant whenever I came back to visit 😕
As a Parisian, I don't regret the tickets. People used to throw them away on the ground and since they involved complex mechanics rather than electronics, the gates were more prone to break, so for the RATP, electronic cards mean less maintenance, which is good, because so much is in constant need of repair, most notably the elevators/staircases. Also for the user, it's more convenient to charge a card than to carry tickets. All these advantages are why pretty much every metro system in the world has switched to something similar.
@@InXLsisDeo Oh, in rational terms, you're right. It's a purely nostalgic thing for me.
While you were talking about French Systems I think it would be interesting to look at the entire public transit system of Lyon. There are only 4 metro lines but there are several tram lines and a few funiculars
4 metro lines for a city of 2 million people isn't such a small number! Even in Europe there are many cities of similar size which don't have that many metro lines. Not to mention the city is also served by 7 modern tram lines and pretty iconic funiculars.
What software do you use to make the video animations?
Very comprehensive video thanks!🙂
When reece says big explained video, he means it!
Lifting that latch on the older train doors has a popping sensation that is so satisfying 😂. Those doors tend to slam shut very hard so you have to stand clear.
As someone who lives and goes to school around the eastern branch of the RER A, I am really looking forward to the Grand Paris project, especially the line that will cross Noisy-Champs and Val de Fontenay. The line can really get busy during rush-hour, and I'm sick of having to cross Paris when I want to go to the northern or southern suburb.
As a parisian (sort of, I don't live within the Périphérique) I find it strange that you didn't talk more about the RER because while they are not called "metro", they are very much interconnecting parts of the metro system. I'd consider them more as a "metro" than the future line 18 for instance
I think you didn't mention it but in the RATP/ Paris transit zoning the métro has an anomaly: All métro Stations are in Zone urbaine. Even those outside of the périphérique.
A RER ride to La Défense costs much more than taking the métro.
I think they discussed once about changing that but then every métro station would also need exit gates (like in London) or like in the RER system.
with the paper ticket demise, at one point they will have to go to something similar to the TfL Oyster Card. The Navigo card as it is just can't cover everything.
@@tenalafel That has nothing to do with the zones ;-) do you think they will introduce different fares for distance at the métro? I cannot imagine that - Les parisiens would protest very loudly...
@@PascalGienger for Zones 1 & 2 they will keep a single fare because as you pointed it would be the revolution, but if they want to integrate the RER, the choices are limited and the ticket prices are already based on distance.
For example : my RER B ticket to Paris is 2.9€ [ when bought by ten, as a single ticket it's 3,10€... and it might be more expensive now, since the price usually change on July 1st ] from Massy Palaiseau RER B [ it's more expensive using RER C as the travel is longer, I don't remember the price as it's more expensive and takes way longer than the B ] )
Right now the tickets are staying on the RER because the nightmare called Navigo never considered the occasional users that buy tickets and don't use a yearly/monthly/weekly pass or the tourists that go with a tourist pass.
@@tenalafel In NYC/NY Agglo it is worse as the fare systems are completely different and there is no common card. The closest offering to a RER are the LIRR and the Metro North lines. Both with different zones, you cannot even get a ticket from Long Island to Poughkeepsie despite both services are run by the same MTA as the NYC subway which knows - like in Paris - only one zone regardless of distance.
And then you have NJ transit, another tariff system as it's in another state.
@@tenalafel The Liberté + version of the Navigo is shaping up to be similar to the Oyster. While it's currently only pay-as-you-use for Paris proper I have seen that it will be expanded to all the IDFM systems by next year. That would at least solve it for French residents. For tourists there's still not a good option like the Oyster.
The station of Haussman-Saint-Lazarre-Auber is also a big gare with many correspondances. Indeed, there is so many that it includes some stations in itself. Indeed there is RER A at Auber, RER E at Haussmann-Saint Lazarre, Transilien J and L at Gare Saint Lazarre, Métro 7 and 8 at Opera, Métro 9 at Havre-Caumartin, Métro 12, 13 and 14 at Saint Lazarre and Métro 9 at Saint Lazarre, Havre-Caumartin and Opéra. This gare is really useful !
as a french guy it's absolutely charming how you tell French names... If i would guess you're from the London region :)
I think the biggest Pros of this system are: The big amount of lines and stations. The rolling stock is decently updated (it helps that Alstom is French). And IMO the biggest Pro is its ambitious expansion plan, as it makes me feel that the government is actually using the people's taxes in something important (unlike in sooooo many ciites around the world haha). I think the biggest Cons are that since it is an older system, the oldest lines have smaller trains than in new Metro systems, which translates to some overcrowding. Also, the fact that the stations are too close to each other leads to much slower service overall.
Amazing and comprehensive video! Do you consider maybe making one about Budapest?
Has he made any video about the tramways of Paris? Cz those r also quite impressive. If yes, pls link me that video
Today in the local press, extensive articles about how line 13 was significantly relieved by the extension of the 14 to the north . I'm happy for the users, honestly, they suffered like crazy all this time.
In Paris, capital of a country where strikes occur at the drop of a hat, they can automate their metro but even a suggestion of automation on London's tube causes strike threats.
@Valérian there have been proposals to automate selected tube lines, which LU staff have threatened to strike over if actioned.
@Valérian What do you think will happen for Paris after 2030? Will the momentum will be kept, this time more in tune with global warming adaptation on desire to reduce car dependency?
@@etbadaboum It's too soon to tell, but there are 2 metro extensions which are very likely in the 2030's. The first one is line 1 east extension from Château de Vincennes to Val de Fontenay. The second is line 10 southeastern extension from Gare d'Austeritz to Les Ardoines.
1 and 14 are full automated
4 will be converted next year (i think)
and maybe in the future 13 and 11
but automatization cos hundred million and take 3 or 4 years
x16 lines
You forgot a train station in the main train section, the "Paris-Bercy Bourgogne-Pays-d'Auvergne" station, next to "Gare de Lyon", it desserve only a small part of the center of France.
Incredible! I've never heard of that one before!
You certainly painted a positive picture for the Paris Metro which is deserves but when I used it in real life I found it to be incredibly claustrophobic (and this is coming from a native NYer who has taken rush hour trains for decades) .But is so small scale that even when not crowded it still felt uncomfortable in almost every way. The curvature/tight design of the stations and narrow platforms are anxiety inducing and then once you're inside a car its as though its made for kids. The folding seat option was a novelty to me bc it showcased how small the space was coupled with how ironically unlikely you are to able to use them anyway bc of the foot traffic. And last but not least what was mentioned also holds true which is that the stops are so close together that it led me to choose to walk to places as going through all of that for endless stop and gos for such short distances drove me mad with little to gain and of course its so beautiful and walkable above ground it was a no brainer that I forwent using it.
I'd love to see a video on Budapest! The second oldest metro in the world (if I'm not mistaken) and one of the best connected tram networks with an insane amount of lines. Happy to help too seeing I grew up in the city and go back regularly.