Have public transport in the Ile-de-France region met the challenge of providing accessibility for spectators with disabilities?

For the past few days, Paris has been living to the rhythm of the Olympic Games. Millions of tourists are expected throughout the event, until the 8th September, the closing date of the Paralympic Games. Among them, some 350 000 visitors with disabilities. The organizers had made the accessibility of the event a central point of their candidacy, promising to pay particular attention to the travel of people with reduced mobility, visual impairments or hearing impairments, on public transport in the Paris region. “We started from far away”the Minister of Transport acknowledged on franceinfo on Monday July 22. “There has been a lot of effort made over the last few years to ensure we are ready for the Games.”believes Patrice Vergriete, even if “not everything is yet fully accessible”.

“Things have moved forward, but they are largely improvable”judges Annette Masson, president of the Tourism & Handicaps association. An observation shared by Nicolas Mérille, national accessibility advisor for the APF France Handicap association, who is concerned about a “black dot” : the metro. The Parisian network, more than a hundred years old years, is an insurmountable obstacle for people with reduced mobility.

To date, 29 stations are considered fully or partially accessible to wheelchair users, according to Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the authority in charge of organizing transport in the region. That is only 9% of the metro map. To compare, “In London, which has an older and deeper network than the Paris metro, 18% of stations were accessible at the time of the Games in 2012”reports Nicolas Mérille to franceinfo.

Only line 14, the most recent, is fully accessible. The other stations adapted to accommodate people in wheelchairs are those put into service in mid-June on the extension of line 11. But the elevators must still not be broken. Annette Masson deplores the slowness of maintenance interventions, which sometimes make access to the platforms impossible during “several days”. In all public transport stations and terminals in Ile-de-France, uJust over 9% of elevators were out of service on the afternoon of August 2, according to real-time data from IDFM on the condition of the equipment, aggregated by franceinfo.

In the metro, the Games deadline has helped to accelerate the generalization of sound and visual accessibility of the metro to facilitate travel for users with visual or hearing impairments. All stations are “equipped with visual announcements of waiting times” And “95% [sont munies] audio announcements about waiting times on platforms”according to the RATP. On the other hand, only 66% of metro trains are equipped with audio announcements and 48% with a “dynamic visual display” to indicate the next stations. Temporary sound systems are to be gradually installed in older trains, pending their replacement by models that comply with accessibility standards, writes The Parisian. But after the Games.

On the Transilien and RER side, some “240 stations” of the rail network are accessible in Ile-de-France during the Games, affirmed Laurent Probst, general director of Ile-de-France Mobilités, during a press briefing on the 19th July, thanks to an investment of two billion euros since 2015. A notable progress, even if half of the stations in the region remain unsuitable for people with reduced mobility, according to data from the authority, and the majority of stops considered accessible require a prior reservation with the Assist’enGare service.

The organizers also praise the accessibility of “100%” RER A and B lines, which serve many sites during the competition. The system implemented on these lines, however, requires that station agents be notified in advance so that they can deploy a mobile ramp between the train and the platform when passengers get on and off.

“I’m not very worried about people from the Paris region who know the system, but for people from the provinces or abroad, it could be much more complicated.”

Nicolas Mérille, national accessibility advisor for APF France Handicap

to franceinfo

Associations are counting on the “kindness” thousands of agents and volunteers dispatched to platforms and stations during the Games, to help people with disabilities find their way and “compensate for deficiencies” accessibility, continues Annette Masson.

The associations are more vocal about the accessibility of the bus network and especially the tram network, “the most satisfying mode of transportation of all”greets Nicolas Mérille, because “vs“is the newest and the one that offers the most autonomy”. All tram lines are accessible to people with reduced mobility. In the carriages, sound devices and illuminated signs also indicate the next stops.

The bus network has also been the subject of developments, particularly in Paris intra-muros, where work has been carried out to ensure that the stops are adapted to the ramps installed on the vehicles. In total, “22 millions of euros” have been invested in “380 “construction sites” carried out since 2021, according to the city’s website. In March, the deputy mayor responsible for these issues, Lamia El Aaraje, thus assured on X that “100% of bus lines” of the capital were now “accessible”A figure to be put into perspective because for a line to be declared accessible, it is sufficient that at least 70% of its stops are so.

In reality, within Paris, More than 91% of stops are suitable for people with reduced mobility, according to calculations by franceinfo based on IDFM data. This proportion decreases as one moves away from the capital: approximately 81% of stops are accessible in the inner suburbs, and 43% in the outer suburbs. As theThe arrangement of stops is the responsibility of municipal road services; accessibility varies from one municipality to another. “A commitment has been made to ensure that all bus stops in the inner and outer suburbs affected by Olympic and Paralympic sites are made accessible”, underlines Nicolas Mérille, whose organization APF France Handicap was involved in working groups on these issues. “On the other hand, there is no assurance about the other stops”he laments.

In practice, a person in a wheelchair may have great difficulty getting on a crowded bus serving an Olympic venue. Not to mention that,In the red zones of the security perimeter,Buses are not allowed to circulate and must take diversions, specifies the Paris city hall.

To complete the transport offer during the Games, 150 Shuttles serve eight Parisian stations and offer drop-offs for wheelchair users “as close as possible to the sites” Olympics, according to the organizers. A thousand taxis adapted for disabled people are now in circulation “compared to 200 to 250 in 2022”explained to the press Pierre Cuneo, director of transport for Paris 2024. A subsidy of 40% of the cost of purchasing these vehicles has been allocated to drivers or companies to achieve this, indicates the Ministry of Ecological Transition on its website. Finally, parking spaces at “closer to the entrance of the sites” are also provided for the personal cars of disabled people, as well as queue-jumping facilities.

These “accessible bus and taxi systems”, “we have to keep them afterwards” the Games, Emmanuel Macron affirmed on July 23, on France 2 and franceinfo. “There is an investment by the nation that must continue over time,” added the president.

On the APF France Handicap side, “We hope that the event will create awareness and an electroshock on the fact that the daily life of people with disabilities, particularly in transport, is not at all the same as that of able-bodied people”recalls Nicolas Mérille. Before warning: “The Games should not be seen as an enchanted interlude, because there is still a lot to do.”