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A comment on The New Paris Métro Is Coming, and It's a Big Deal. Parent comment

Re:The New Paris Métro Is Coming, and It's a Big Deal by rjzzleep on Saturday November 25, 2023 @10:15PM (#38418850)
Tokyo's metro region is smaller than Paris and fits more than 3 times the people. The metro's top speed is up to 5 times as fast as Paris's metro. It's on a completely different scale. And given that Paris is Europe's second busiest metro system it tells you something.

It is unfortunately a bit hard to compare the length of the system, since it's hard to distinguish between the local lines that are not operated by tokyo metro vs. the longer distance ones.

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Re:The New Paris Métro Is Coming, and It's a Big Deal by throwaway2037 on Monday November 27, 2023 @04:05AM (#38429948)
Overall, your post is thoughtful.

Can you help me to understand this part?

    The metro's top speed is up to 5 times as fast as Paris's metro.
I would not call the Tokyo subways lines (both companies) very fast when riding a local train. I went to Paris for a week and found the metro lines fairly similar.
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Re:The New Paris Métro Is Coming, and It's a Big Deal by rjzzleep on Monday November 27, 2023 @11:13PM (#38442259)
You are correct, taking the reference speed as measurement is not a valid line of reasoning.

The average speed is higher, the speed is lower the closer the stations are together, but the speed also depends on the line; i.e. the Ginza line added ATS(automated train stop, added in 1993). I just learned that Paris' Line 14, that went into service in 2022, also drives at accelerated speeds, it's the first line with ATS in Paris. I think the main problems that need to be addressed with respect to higher speed transportation are the following:

1. the breaking system needs to be assisted (ATS)

2. the railway needs to be replaced and reinforced

3. turn angles can't exceed a certain degree

1 and 3 are a design issue that isn't really addressed in older metro system, and 2 is probably a political problem. Contrary to my previous belief it seems that France is at least trying to address some of the points in their metro extensions, which is nice.

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