patrick wrote:

I've lived in London for several years now, and lived in Paris before.

Me too.

The Metro needs a bit of maintenance and rework, but let's face it, the Tube
needs to be started from scratch again. Which will never happen, since my
fellow Londoners will never admit to having an inferior network to anyonein
the world.

Eh? All Londoners (like Parisians) do is moan about how crap it is.

It's not that signage is confusing (I never had any problem with it, but

Nope - me neither. A few teething problems while you get used to it, but
that's not the same as bad design. Complex things need a little learning.

For instance, the Paris local maps show exactly where the Metro exits are,
and what you face when you get out. In London, someone decided it would be
better to just show a big round Tube sign, and once you get out you are
totally lost as to which street is which one.

Agreed. Totally. Some of them aren't so bad. But then remember that
orientation-information is much better in Paris generally. Almost
wherever you are in the central area, you'll find one of those
billboards with a Plan du Quartier on it. There are virtually none of
these anywhere in the whole of London.

Having said that, some of the tube-exit Continuing Your Journey maps are
not too bad, but it's not rare to be unable to find one. Some exits just
don't seem to have them. I also like how in Paris the equivalents are
also down on the platform - this can often be useful (as the stops are
so close together) to decide which exit to use. In London, for most of
them, you have to have already chosen your exit before you can find the
map. (And then, as you say, the existd are often not well-marked anyway.)

Most of the trains don't have their directions written anywhere else than in
the front. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when on a platform, what you see of
the train is not the front, but the side.

The answer is, of course, when the train is arriving, and you remember
to look for it, in the two seconds it's readable.

But then there is usually the dot matrix on the platform. Paris doesn't
have these, but then it doesn't really need to, as trains generally go
to the terminus all the time. (I can't ever remembering one in Paris
terminating early in the two years I worked there. Of course there are
early and late exceptions, so that there is a Line 3 train in République
overnight, for example.)

In Paris, directions are on the
sides,

Only for trains that have two branches, so two possible destinations.
(e.g. Line 7 - "Ivry" vs "Villejuif". Of course, these destination lamps
on the side are also coloured (Blue and Yellow I think), so even if you
can't read them, you learn which colour light to be looking out for.)

But then, they are the only trains that need them of course!

and inside. Simple and logical.

Inside? Is this a new thing on the new trains I have not seen or
forgotten about? Like I say though, there is really no need for them
anyway in the Paris system.

Colour coding vs. numbers: colours are ok for locals (I tend to prefer
nicknaming the lines myself), but please note that tourists don't remember
the colours anyway.

Paris has colours, numbers or names (Yellow/1/Chateau de Vincennes-Le
Défense).

London has colours and names (Green, District).

So, from that point of view, Paris has three options to choose whichever
one you prefer; London has two.

I would argue about tourists not remembering the colour - in my
experience people who have not used it for long are more likely to use
the colours as an aide memoire.

A good point for London: everybody understand the concept of "keep right" in
the escalators. A major pain every time I take the Metro Or maybe it's

Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I don't ever really
remember it being that much of a problem. However, I don't think Paris
has signs all over the place telling you to keep to one side, so there
is no reason (apart from common sense!) for people to do so.

Also, flow is generally better because they have those one-way doors, so
you *have* to go down the correct side of the corridor before it splits
up, or you will get stuck on the wrong side of a one-way door.

the ratio of tourists to locals, higher in Paris?

I think not.

On the other hand, Londoners tend to disregard the fact that in order for
them to board a train, they have to let people off first. Very impolite, in
Paris it doesn't happen that much - but maybe it's more because of the
general crampness in the Tube, its very narroy platforms?

I think also partly because the doors are almost always on the same side
in Paris. Many people automatically go to the other side as soon as they
get on. In London, this wouldn't help much. The funny thing is that you
would expect the London model to work better (i.e. not have one side
really crowded all the time), but it doesn't seem to work like that.

I actually have my own theory on the human aspect of letting off/pushing
on/standing aside in Paris vs. London, but it's not one I've ever tried
to formally explain, so I'm not going to start now. However, one
striking difference is that temporarily stepping off the train to let
other people get off and then getting back on is (a) sensible, (b)
utterly normal in Paris and (c) virtually unknown of in London.

International signs: the RATP made a real effort in adding ES, IT, DE and EN
signs here and there.

There was hardly any up to about 1997, but they have done a lot since
then, yes.

Apart from station names in Hindi in Southall and
Ealing,

Which are not for the same purpose at all.

LU doesn't seem to care and assumes everybody speaks English.

Perhaps partly, but what would you say is the "obvious" languages to put
these signs in?

French? German? Yep.
Spanish? I think so.
Japanese? Would definitely be useful.

You could go on with many more too though - where do you stop? How many
would be too many for a simple sign?

If you are going to include languages which are used by citizens of many
other countries as lingua francae, then you could definitely add Russian
to the list too. Then again, English is the lingua franca between lots
and lots of countries too.

Which languages would you have (and why)?

Which
is true, but it says a lot about the London state of mind vs. the Paris
state of mind.

Oh, absolutely, but don't get me started on that! (Despite the outward
appearances and general opinion of The Man In The Street, I find the
Parisian way of negotiating public transport a LOT more polite than that
of the average London user.)