Which Paris Metro Line Is the Worst? Data‑Driven Secrets Revealed

Paris’s metro and RER networks are notorious among students for frequent delays, cancellations, and uncomfortable conditions.

Data Collection

The author first tried official RATP and SNCF sources and a Citymapper report, but failed, then scraped the Twitter accounts of each line to gather real‑time incident tweets.

This yielded tweets for five rail lines and fourteen metro lines.

Data Cleaning

Removed unrelated content such as greetings and personal replies.

Standardized hashtags (e.g., #Infotrafic) and corrected abbreviations like “pte” to “porte”.

Exploratory Data Analysis

Delays and cancellations have increased over the observed period.

Clear seasonality appears, with higher incident counts in Q2 and Q4.

Lines A and B consistently show the worst performance.

Station‑Level Findings

Stations such as Nation and Paris‑Nord emerge as hotspots for incidents.

Root Cause Analysis

Analysis shows the leading causes of delays are suspicious packages, followed by sick passengers, technical faults, and malicious acts such as stone‑throwing.

Conclusion

The most retweeted RER A tweet was about a rescued dog.

RER A and RER B have the highest delay and cancellation rates.

Suspicious packages are the primary cause of delays.

Major stations like Nation experience frequent incidents.