Toulouse: the metro has fully resumed, but why so many breakdowns
Partially stopped since Monday morning, the A was fully restored online this Wednesday, September 22 in the morning, when the network opened, after two nights of intense repair. After a power outage last week, why so many outages since the start of the school year? Note especially a resumption of vandalism, according to Tisséo.
With the start of the school year and the improvement of the sanitary climate, could this be the return of the galley of metro breakdowns? Since Monday morning 5:15 am, when it opened, the A line was partially stopped between Jolimont and the Balma-Gramont terminus. Everything is back to normal this Wednesday, September 22, at dawn, with the full restoration of the line, from Basso Cambo to Balma-Gramont.
Last week, September 14, a power cut shut down Line B for two hours. The network, which is almost 30 years old (the line was inaugurated in 1993), would it be a victim of its age?
“Not at all,” replies Jean-Michel Lattes, “the maintenance process put in place must minimize incidents on the network, moreover the outage on Monday is not a failure, it is a shutdown that we have decided. : during our nightly maintenance operations, we noticed during the night from Sunday to Monday that a piece of the insulating block of the guide rail (at the level of the Rose Garden) had burnt out, the metro trains were passing normally but the part had to be changed, which required partially stopping the line to cut and resolder the rail, ”continues the boss of Tisséo Collectivités.
98% uptime
The Mister Mobility of the agglomeration reminds that the metro has an availability rate of 98%, that is to say that it operates normally 98% of the time. There remain the 2% where it rolls less well. “There are three types of cause of interruption of metro service, each for a third, continues the manager, passenger incidents (vandalism, discomfort), technical incidents and external causes such as the power cut of September 14 by our energy supplier, Engie. We have launched a major maintenance plan and, in recent times, the trend has been towards a decrease in technical incidents and an increase in acts of vandalism ”.
“The availability of the metro is fairly stable, but since deconfinement, there has been a definite increase in acts of vandalism,” confirms Florian Korver, technical director of Tisséo Voyageurs. The person in charge of maintenance adds: “the installation of the 52 m and the renovation of the platform facades on the line
In other words, with deconfinement, some metro users would let go and regain their bad habits. “We have launched an awareness campaign and the multiplication of cameras should help us to verbalize the culprits”, specifies Jean-Michel Lattes.
15 agents, at night, to repair
The Toulouse metro runs thanks to its tires placed on the running tracks. But the cars are guided and supplied with electricity by side rails. It is an insulating block of this rail which has burnt out, requiring the partial interruption of the line in order to repair it. “During the night from Monday to Tuesday, while the power supply to the entire line was cut, we cut the rail over several meters then, during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, it was replaced and re-welded, and on a test procedure; About fifteen agents worked every night, ”explains Florian Korver, Technical Director of Tisséo Voyageurs, in charge of technical services and maintenance.
