It is an anonymous building in Romainville, northeast of Paris. It houses, on two floors, an essential RATP service: the passenger regulation and information center (CRIV). In this anonymous building, 330 people have monitored the circulation of buses in Paris and the inner suburbs since 2013. And they are preparing to experience a few weeks that are as strategic as they are difficult: ensuring that traffic is as smooth as possible during the Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP) – the latter overlapping with the start of the school year.
For this exceptional period, Fabien Plazanet, the director of CRIV, and Victor Ganivet, the operational director of the bus network, recruited 40 additional agents and called on a few young retirees to strengthen the workforce.
To take into account the JOP tests and traffic constraints, “it was necessary to rebuild part of the bus network”explains Mr. Ganivet, who assures that RATP agents know how to do: “We are used to having arrivals from the Tour de France or July 14 ceremonies”, explains the manager. This summer, it will be every day.
Night cadence
The first line bypasses began in March, due to the installation of the first sites, with an increase in power at the beginning of May. The route of around twenty lines is already disrupted and this will increase to 50 lines, out of 330, at the beginning of July. We will have to wait until September, or even October, for everything to return to normal.
Small consolation, during the JOP, Paris should not be under construction, which will facilitate the circulation of buses, whose average speed has difficulty exceeding 10 kilometers per hour. Above all, the frequency of night buses, the Noctilien, will be increased throughout the period: they will have the frequency of Fridays and Saturdays every day of the week. Like all other buses, they must be permanently in contact with a regulator. The CRIV therefore operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
One of the difficulties for the CRIV during the Games is to adapt traffic to a situation which will change every day depending on the events. “We already know, for example, that July 26 or August 3 will be days to avoid”, notes Pierre Ravier, deputy general director of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM), the transport organizing authority, chaired by Valérie Pécresse. Obviously forget the bus on the days when there will be road events: marathon (August 10 and 11) or cycling (July 27, August 3 and 4). It is also necessary to reorganize the courses at each exit from the event. When spectators leave the Accor Arena, in Bercy, for example, it is impossible to move around. The security perimeter must be adapted according to the crowd. It is the operators of the five rooms in Romainville who adapt the routes, send information to drivers and provide information to travelers, including updating the applications in real time.
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