700,000 passengers will use line 14 during the Olympic period, serving the Stade de France and the Olympic Village. One of the last critical one-month phases must begin before it opens to the public on May 13.
“We can see the finish line.” RATP Jean Casteaux CEO and IL-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) President Valéry Pacres took stock of the progress of the extension project this Wednesday 27 March, visiting Line 14’s brand new maintenance center in Morangis (Assonne).
The Olympic Games start in just four months and the extension of line 14 south to Orly Airport and north to Saint-Denis-Playel must be delivered before the event.
“The next major step for us is the dry run”, a kind of dress rehearsal for the metro to run in real conditions but without passengers, Jean Casteaux suggested. This should start on May 13 and “last at least a month”, recalls Regina’s boss.
If Céline Malisse, president of the Communist Left group, ecologist and citizen of the Ile-de-France regional council, brought forward a date of June 20 for the inauguration, it was not confirmed by President Valéry Pécresse.
At Morangis, 60% of the trains on Line 14 will be supported at the maintenance and storage area (SMR). It is also used to receive new MP14 trainsets delivered by Alstom as there should be 72 of them by mid-2025 compared to 35 currently.
For the moment, nine of them have been received, and by the Olympics, RATP will be able to “count on 52 or 53 trains, corresponding to the traffic expected by this deadline”, underlined Jean Casteaux.
1 million daily travelers by mid-2025
From 650,000 trips per day, Line 14 should increase to one million daily trips by mid-2025, making it the busiest on the network ahead of Line 1. For the Olympics, IDFM and RATP expect around 700,000 passengers per day on this line. line, which will serve the Stade de France and the Olympic Village.
Regarding the delivery of the metro by Jean Casteaux and Valéry Pacres, particularly by Alstom, the regional president stressed that without the Games, the deadline for the inauguration would never have been met. “We can also give some feedback to apply it to the opening of the next line of the Grand Paris Express”, she added.
To meet the deadline, users will have to undergo a new complete shutdown of the line for five days, from May 8 to 12, to connect the southern part of the line and start a dry run.
At the Morangis maintenance center – one of two along the Saint-Ouen docks for line 14 – 90% of the workforce (70 people) has already been hired to prepare for the opening in June.
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