page_title: Paris Métro Line 14
section_title: The Météor Project
hierarchical_section_title: Paris Métro Line 14 / Development / The Météor Project
caption_attribution_description: English: Paris Métro, station Saint Lazare (line 14) with Platform screen doors
context_page_description: Paris Métro Line 14 is one of the sixteen lines on the Paris Métro. It connects the stations Saint-Lazare and Olympiades on a north-west south-east diagonal across the centre of Paris. It was operated completely automatically from the beginning, and the very positive return of that experiment motivated the retrofitting of Line 1 for full automation. Before being put into commercial service Line 14 was known as project Météor, an acronym of MÉTro Est-Ouest Rapide.
  The line is also occasionally used as a showcase for the expertise of the RATP, its operator, and Systra and Siemens Transportation Systems, constructors of the rolling stock and automated equipment respectively when they bid internationally to build metro systems. In March 2014 the first of 18 MP 05 trains went into revenue service on Line 14. The STIF purchased these trains to improve service along the line and prepare the extension to the north in 2017. These trains will continue to enter service through 2015. The line is expected to be part of the Grand Paris Express rapid transit network and to be extended north and south for this project.
context_section_description: The original line 14 linked Invalides with Porte de Vanves until 1976, when it was merged into the southern section of the current line 13.
  Paris's east–west axis across has long been heavily travelled: Line 1 of the Métro began approaching saturation in the 1940s, necessitating the construction of Line A of the RER in the 1960s and '70s; which became the busiest urban routes in Europe (by 2010 there were more than a million passengers each working day). To improve service, the SACEM (Système d'aide à la conduite, à l'exploitation et à la maintenance --"Assisted driving, control and maintenance system") was installed on the central run of Line A in September 1989. This improved efficiency and reduced the interval between trains to just two minutes, though an improvement ultimately insufficient to absorb the increasing demand. To cater permanently to demand on the busy artery between Auber and Gare de Lyon new rail lines would have to be built.
  Two proposals were made by the transport companies: the SNCF suggested a new tunnel between Châtelet and Gare de Lyon for Line D of the RER allowing traffic to circulate from the north and south-east of Île-de-France. More importantly it proposed "Project EOLE" ("Est-Ouest Liaison Express"), the creation of a new standard gauge line, initially from Paris's eastern suburbs to Saint-Lazare, then an extension onwards to the western suburbs.
  In 1987, the RATP proposed "project Météor", ("MÉTro-Est-Ouest-Rapide") the creation of a new Métro line, from Porte Maillot on the edge of the 16th arrondissement to the Maison Blanche district in the 13th, an area poorly served by transport despite its large population. The project would fit well with the regeneration of the Tolbiac district on the left bank around the new Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in that arrondissement.
  The plans to go to Porte Maillot were eventually abandoned in favour of a terminus at Saint-Lazare, with the later possibility of extending the line to Clichy and assimilating the Asnières branch of Line 13, thus simplifying its complicated operation.
  This new line parallel to Line A took the opportunity to incorporate innovations on the rest of the network: the stations are larger and, at 120 metres, longer and thus can accommodate eight carriages. The runs between stations are longer, allowing a rolling speed of close to 40 km per hour, close to double that of the other Paris metro lines and approaching that of the RER. Lastly, the line is completely automated and runs without any driver, the first large-scale metro line in a capital to do so (although driverless operation had been used on the VAL system in Lille and the MAGGALY technology of Lyon Metro Line D).
  Given the pressing need, the council of Ministers of Michel Rocard's government approved the project in October 1989. However, budgetary constraints forced the reduction of both. In the first stage, EOLE would be but a simple extension of trains from the suburbs to the new underground station at  Saint-Lazare and MÉTEOR limited to the central Madeleine – Bibliothèque run, thus leaving the main railway station of Saint-Lazare and the heart of the 13th arrondissement unserved. The tunnels were dug between 1993 and 1995.  It was opened to the public in 1998 and had its first automatic run in October 1998.
  Some features of Line 14's train control system are run under the OpenVMS operating system.  Its control system is noted in the field of software engineering of critical systems because safety properties on some safety-critical parts of the systems were proved using the B-Method, a formal method.
  Line 14 has some unusual design features – its floor tiling is not bitumenised, and platform screen doors at stations prevent passengers from falling onto the track or from committing suicide.
  The southern extension of the line to Olympiades in June 2007, an area of high rise towers in the XIIIe arrondissement that was not served very well, was not a real extension: the tunnel was built at the same time as the rest of the line, but it was used as a train maintenance area
caption: Line 14 – St Lazare station
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