UK.iMaZiR

> Tube lines: More lines in Paris but longer lines in London.
Not sure, I guess you haven’t taken into account RER or “trains de banlieues” (suburb trains) which have very long lines. 14 lines of metro, 5 of RER, I don’t know for suburb trains.

> Buses 24/24
Paris has Noctambus and Noctilien, a dozen of lines 24/24. During the week, every 30 min or 1 hour, during friday and saturday nights every 10 minutes.

> Public Tube Network Size
Paris has 5 zones, but I’m not quite sure about what you’re referring to with “zone”.

> Public Transport fraud
I think you’re way exagerating. While it’s more than London, percentage of fraud is estimated at 3.9% by the RATP.

> Quality of Service
Paris metro is much better than London for that. Last strike in Paris was more than two years ago. As always, quality of service depends a lot on the line you’re taking. Line 14 is perfect, line 13 is a nightmare. On the other hand, London buses are better than in Paris.

Anyway, you’re forgetting the new thing in Paris: bikes, with more than 30 000 available every 300 meters.

Hello Alexis,

> Tube lines:
I didn’t take into account RER, just the tube.

> Buses 24/24:
Yes you’re right. I corrected the table.

> Public Tube Network Size
I speak about the zones where the tube can go, so for example for Paris, you have the line 12 that goes to “Issy les moulineaux”. And Paris is only zone 1, whereas London exists within its 10 zones.

> Public Transport fraud
You’re right but I think it is slightly more than what the RATP is saying. I am interested in the way they collect the data for statistics, do you know?

> Quality of Service
Yes I agree, I prefer Paris tube quality because you have less signalisation faults and other problems we have here that slow the tube…

I am aware of those new bicycles in Paris and I will test! It’s a good asset for the capital.

Hello,

Well, I’m not sure it really makes sense if you don’t had RER and suburb trains because these are everyday transportation system for a lot of persons.
For the fraud percentage, I have no idea where they got this information, it might be a bit more, see: http://www.ratp.fr/corpo/faq/reponses.html

In fact I didn’t include the RER because it’s not a system only for Paris. To include the RER it is more relevant to speak about Paris and its “banlieue”. I just wanted to show the differences between Paris and London without the suburbs, that’s why I did not include a lot of trains for London as well.
Just for information: London itself is as big as Paris and its banlieues…

Well, to be honest, London as a whole is slightly larger than Paris, but when it comes to it’s city center, or ‘downtown’, as the Americans say it, Paris is much bigger. You can just walk from end to end in London’s city center (administration and commercial area), but definitely not in Paris.

I don’t know how much time you’ve spent in Paris, but it looks like you’ve just pulled some stats off of the web. Having lived in both, I find the Paris system is significantly better, except of course during the strikes. In London, the 24h buses you praise regularly stop while the driver turns off the engine to encourage a fare-dodger to pay!! I was shocked the first time it happened, it’s like being at school! The RER is not something you can exclude because it’s a suburb train - it runs through the heart of Paris and is an integral part of the network!! It’s the reason the Paris metro lines are shorter - they have a good 2 tier system, whereas in London the tube network is stretched across both short hop and longer distance journeys.

Population in Paris is around 2.5 million and with suburb’s around 11 miljon.
London 7 million, and with suburb’s bit bigger than Paris urban area.
I think, London metro is like RER so called rapid metro in Paris. Paris metro is just a transport in the urban erea center.

http://www.comby.org/acces/images/RER-map-PARIS.jpg

In this picture you can see white area in the center, this is tiny Paris with 2.5 million habitants.
All 14 metro lines are only on this white center

http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/repmus/SMC04/picts/metro.gif

Paris population 2.5 million is even less than inner london 2.9 million.
http://media.economist.com/images/20080315/CFB914.gif

If you want to compare Paris transport with London transport, we sould compare inner London with Paris or 2 urban areas.