France: trains and bus strikes continue

Transport strikes continued across France today, although the number of services running increased.

Submitted by jef costello on November 16, 2007

According to the CGT observance of the strike today (Thursday) was at 46%, 42,8% according to management, figures for yesterday were 61.5%. In Paris observance dropped from 44% yesterday to 27.2%.

The striking unions called for AGs to vote to continue the action on Friday.

The SNCF saw improvements in services today, running a total of 150 out of 700 TGV services, 50 out of 300 Corail services and one in three TER services. For the Transilien services between two and four trains were running during rush hour.

Tomorrow the SNCF claims it will run 250 TGVs, 60 Corail, 1/3 TER and 1-4 Transiliens per hour.

In Paris the number of buses running doubled to 30%. On the Métro, 1 train ran every 10 minutes on lines 1 and 11, every 15 minutes on lines 2 and 4, every 30 minutes on lines 5, 9 and 13 and every 45 minutes on line 12. There was no service on 3, 6, 7, 7b, 8 and 10. Line 14 ran as usual.

With the suburban RER lines line A ran a tenth of its normal service and line B, which serves Charles de Gaulle Airport had no service. After running virtually no services the tramways saw 1/4 service on line 1, full service on line 2 and 2/3 service on line 3.

For tomorrow the RATP are predicting that the metro will mostly stay at a similar level but with trains running every half an hour on lines 7b, 8 and 13. Service on the RER A and the tramlines is predicted to worsen.

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