The New Year’s Eve bullfight! This is the name of a famous running race in São Paulo, Brazil, which has existed since 1925. But in Toulouse, it could be the name given to the sleepless night that some 60 Tisséo agents will spend so that the two metro lines run nonstop throughout the last night of the year.
The service will start as usual at 5:30 am on December 31, 2021. But it will not stop until 43 hours later, on September 2, 2022 at 12:30 am. As in 2019, but not as in 2020 where the operation had not taken place because of Covid, the Toulouse metro will operate continuously throughout New Year’s Eve so that revelers celebrating the New Year can quietly return home when they want. Laurent Lieutaud, Commercial Director of Tisséo explains the system put in place.
“We are used to the short interruption of the metro on weekends, where the metro only stops between 3 and 5:30 in the morning, says the manager, so the fact of not closing at all at night of the 31 does not represent a technical difficulty for us. There is simply no maintenance or work scheduled that night, other than cleaning the trainsets and docks of course. To operate the two lines, around sixty agents are mobilized: there is a presence in each of the 38 stations and at the Basso Cambo PC, and prevention agents (against fraud and to enforce health measures, Editor’s note. ) and 5 OTCM, technical operators who detect, in the event of a technical incident, a blocked landing door style. In 2019, between 9:30 p.m. and 5 a.m. the next day, line A received 23,500 users and B, 26,500, or 50,000 in total. To which must be added 10,000 people transported in the evening buses and the tram until 1:30 in the morning. We are 15% less frequentation compared to before the Covid but we encountered 12% more frequency to ensure more comfort ”.