Thirteen million tourists expected, 600,000 spectators, 200,000 accredited people to be transported every day, during the summer and autumn of 2024. Suffice to say that the fluidity of journeys during the Olympic and Paralympic Games is essential to their smooth running. Not only for the travel of athletes and supporters: the Ile-de-France residents who will rub shoulders with the equivalent of “55 simultaneous world championships of different disciplines”according to Pierre Moscovici, the first president of the Court of Auditors, must also be able to continue to carry out their activities.
In their progress report to parliamentarians, presented on Tuesday 10 January, the magistrates of the Court of Auditors therefore ask the various mobility players to enter the operational phase of preparation for the Games as quickly as possible, by defining before the end of the first semester a transport and flow projection plan, which Emmanuel Macron has been asking for months.
The mobility component is crucial on two counts. Firstly because of its intertwining with that of security. The incidents which surrounded the final of the Football Champions League, at the end of May 2022 at the Stade de France, when the RER B was affected by a strike movement, anchored this link in everyone’s mind. Then, because there is today “real risks [de retard] on infrastructure projects »which should be commissioned from May 2024 for a month of “white run”.
Questions about the RER E extension project
The Court of Auditors notes that the organization of the Games has mourned projects that have already run out of time: lines 15, 16 and 17 of the Grand Paris Express, the Charles de Gaulle Express (between the airport and the Gare du Nord), the Paris-Nice and Paris-Toulouse TGV lines. Also gone is the hope of accessing all the Olympic sites by bike. This outlook ” no longer conceivable, it is important to quickly stabilize the map of Olympic cycle routes likely to be completed on time and to ensure their completion”concludes the financial jurisdiction.
The construction site that worries him the most seems to be that of Eole, the extension of the RER E, “which must ensure an improvement in service to the Paris La Défense Arena” from Porte Maillot, which must be redeveloped. However, it is there that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the press will be installed, from there also that ” the network of Olympic and Paralympic routes to serve sites located in Paris”.
It is also imperative, for the Court of Auditors, to meet the deadlines for the extension of metro line 14, in particular to the north, towards Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, “to serve the Stade de France, the Olympic aquatic center and the athletes’ village”and to complete the associated Pleyel urban crossing, a bridge which will make it possible to cross the railway tracks and in particular to pass from the athletes’ village to the Stade de France.
“As of the date of the report, states the Court, the production schedules remained compatible with the deadline for the Games. However, in the absence of any real calendar leeway and alternative solutions, the conduct of these operations requires increased vigilance, and even new decisions to ensure timely delivery”.
“Important that there is a message of collective responsibility”
Human resources are a last concern, but not the least. The additional supply of transport to be put in place corresponds, explains the Court, to “the one usually practiced during rush hour”, but in summer, during the traditional holidays. A capability challenge that will require “upstream a robust social dialogue”.
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Pierre Moscovici insists: “it is important that there is a message of collective responsibility”while the opening up of RATP bus lines to competition has considerably strained social relations.
The RATP and the SNCF are not the only operators under pressure as the Games approach. Even Toyota, the partner for the transport of the accredited, worries the magistrates: “As regards individual vehicles, for which the negotiations with Toyota have not been completed, the recruitment of several thousand drivers remains a challenge to be met. »