FRANCE: SNCF Réseau and Alstom said on July 3 that they had mutually agreed to pause work to equip the western end of Paris RER Line E with the ATS+ traffic management tool.
This is the latest setback to the Est-Ouest Liaison Express programme to extend Paris RER Line E to the west of the city; when the €3∙7bn project began in 2016, it had been hoped the full 55 km route would operational by the end of 2022. Now full completion is likely to be seven years late with an out-turn cost of at least €5∙4bn.
The Éole programme covers work to extend Line E westwards from Haussmann-Saint-Lazare to Mantes-la-Jolie, requiring a new 8 km tunnel between the former city centre terminus and Nanterre-La Folie. This section of new line opened in May 2024, but work to enable RER trains to share the 47 km main line corridor westwards to Mantes-la-Jolie is ongoing.
The central core of Line E through Paris has been built to enable up to 22 trains per hour to run in each direction in the peaks. To achieve this aim, SNCF Réseau has adopted CBTC train control with ATO for the section between Nanterre and Pantin in the inner eastern suburbs.
Currently, the operational section of Line E from the east through the city to Nanterre is supervised from a single integrated control centre at Pantin. However, the NExTEO CBTC, supplied by Siemens Mobility under a February 2016 contract worth €186m, is only fitted in the central core.
For the rest of the route, the infrastructure manager intended that an advanced traffic management tool known as ATS+ should be deployed to help manage the flow of trains. This is not part of NExTEO, which has its own traffic management layer. One of the critical functions of ATS+ would be to ensure that trains are regulated, dwell times managed and access to the central core occurs in an optimised manner, such that the 22 trains/h goal could be achieved.
Two contracts were let for the ATS+ roll-out on either side of the section governed by NExTEO. At the eastern end of the route, the equipment is being installed by Siemens Mobility, and in the east, Alstom is doing the work. While regular engineering possessions are being taken to complete the installation between Pantin and Val-de-Fontenay/Le Raincy in the east, it is at the western end where the greatest challenge lies.
Following reports in the local press, on July 3 Alstom and SNCF Réseau told Railway Gazette International that while claims the western ATS+ contract had been cancelled were incorrect, both parties were ‘temporarily suspending‘ work pending a detailed review of how best to proceed. This would include a reassessment of the commercial terms and the scope of the ATS+ western project.
However, SNCF Réseau notes that none of this affects current or future roll-out of the NExTEO CBTC platform on the RER network. Currently, it is expected that a limited Line E service could start between Nanterre and Mantes-la-Jolie in mid-2027, with a full service supported by ATS+ or equivalent tools coming on stream by the end of 2029.
