The Champs-Elysées on November 24, 2018
The Champs-Elysées on November 24, 2018
From November 2018, serious events called "yellow vest demonstrations" shook France and particularly Paris. Many degradations were committed by the demonstrators, particularly on the urban furniture. Many traffic lights installations, sometimes confused by the demonstrators with video surveillance installations, were ransacked or set on fire : overturned masts, vandalized lights, burnt cabinets...
The town hall of Paris refused to communicate the amount of the damage, but according to certain sources it could be higher than 1 million euros, just for the tricolor signaling.
NOVEMBER 2018 EVENTS
this type of permanent installation has become the norm for all damaged masts in Paris
The public contract for the maintenance of the traffic lights, but also for public lighting in Paris, ended in 2021. Held for 10 years by the consortium of companies EVESA, its initial objective was to reduce the electricity consumption of lights and 30% lighting lanterns. No one knows if it has been achieved.
If initially the changes were notable in Paris, in particular in the replacement of all the light sources of the signals by LEDs, but also by the replacement of 1500 Grolleau traffic lights, or the arrival of new pedestrian refuges, the situation of the Parisian traffic lights deteriorated considerably towards the end of this market. Many have pointed to the negligence of the operator EVESA, including within the town hall of Pairs, criticizing it in particular for generating colossal profits compared to the quality of its maintenance actions; EVESA replied that the proliferation of temporary installations was due to a lack of funds allocated by the City of Paris for the replacement of damaged and degraded equipment, especially during the yellow vests crisis.
It is true that anyone who has wandered around Paris between 2018 and 2021 could only see the lamentable state of the traffic light facilities, which are no more than the ghost of what they were. Some intersections are even composed exclusively of temporary traffic lights on concrete blocks.
Be that as it may, the new public contract was awarded in the summer of 2021 to the Cielis consortium, made up of Citélum (a subsidiary of EDF specializing in this field, and which had already operated in Paris until 2011), and of Eiffage Energie Systèmes, for an amount of 704 million euros and for a period of 10 years. Cielis took office on October 28, 2021, and has already announced the renovation or replacement of 60,000 traffic lights.
CHANGE OF MAINTAINER
Presentation of the new pedestrian signal by Evesa on the forecourt of the town hall in 2016
SOURCES
Mairie de Paris, Direction de la Voirie et des Déplacements
Mairie de Paris, Direction de la Voirie et des Déplacements, 1976-2017 la régulation de la circulation à Paris, comment internet a détrôné l'arbre à cames, G.Delthil, 2017
Mairie de Paris, Direction de la Voirie et des Déplacements, plan de mise en accessibilité de la voirie et des espaces publics, 2012
Mairie de Paris, mission patrimoine industriel
Mairie de Paris, archives municipales, archives personnelles de R.Blancherie, directeur d'EVR
Mairie de Paris, Paris Data
Annales des Ponts & Chaussées, problèmes techniques soulevés par la signalisation lumineuse, A. Herzog, 1955
Citélum - site internet
Evesa - site internet
Robardey - site internet
Grolleau - site internet
Garbarini - site internet
SFIM - site internet
Wilmotte & associés - site internet
Jean-Henri Manara, collection photographique
Lacroix Traffy 3G
Aximum
2013
ARP Signal
2010s
On wall
On gallow
on public lighting pole
on public lighting pole
Lateral
On adjustable consoles
Top
THE DIFFERENT BINDINGS
Garbarini Fareco Gallery
CONTROLLERS
SEA Nixea model
2018
SEA Signalisation
LED
since 2017
RTB push button
LED
since 2013
LEDs
Ets Girardin
second generation
2000s
LEDs
Grolleau
since the 2000s
NEW PEDESTRIANS PUSH BUTTON
NEW REPEATERS
JP Vezon model
2006
new Grolleau model since the end of 2015
Sagem signal
Garbarini signals
Parisian signals adapted to the tramway
69 years after its disappearance, the tramway made its big comeback in the streets of Paris in 2006, with the inauguration of the tramway of the southern marshals (TMS).
This line is logically equipped with the classic Parisian Grolleau traffic lights with the regulatory symbols concerning public transport on its own site (R17 or R18). Intersections with the tramway are managed by R24 signals, and pedestrian crossings by R25 signals from the manufacturer JP Vezon Equipements. However, more exotic signals for Paris have been installed at the stations : Garbarini Design 2000 and Sagem Astron signals as a direction indicator or voltage presence signal.
On the controller side, 46 Gallery from the manufacturer Garbarini, associated with numerous ancillary equipment (detectors, video analyzer, modem, fiber optic switch, etc.) will be installed to manage the intersections of the new Parisian tramway.
THE RETURN OF THE TRAM
The last static electronic controller filed in 2004
The last electromechanical controller in Paris filed in 2004
Installed in 1966 at the crossroads of the Place d'Iéna, and after 38 years of good and loyal service, the very last electromechanical controller in Paris, a Garbarini M158, was removed in 2004.
The same year, the last controller with static electronics, also a Garbarini installed in 1974, was also deposited at the crossroads of the Place de l'Ecole Militaire.
In 2006, a new generation controller, the Garbarini Fareco Gallery, appeared on the intersections of the new Paris tramway (see below), but apart from this specific case, the city of Paris continues to call on controllers to generation, yet become obsolete in the face of a new generation of more efficient automatons.
It was not until 2011, i.e. 6 years after the first reflections in Paris on specifications for new generation controllers, and after incredible administrative and technical delays, that two new Gallery controllers were installed in Paris on conventional intersections. This model will be joined in 2016 by the Lacroix Trafic Traffy 3G controller.
REGULATORY MODERNIZATION
Traffic light burned on May 1, 2019
A controller ransacked on December 1, 2018
Traffic light destroyed on January 19, 2019
The Champs-Elysées on November 24, 2018
Old model retrofitted Bowden bollard LED
Saubacaucho Lookart X-Last Bollards
experimentation 2012
Fareco Galaxy terminal installed
since 2012
While traffic light signals and public lighting are first and foremost concerned by the objective of reducing the electricity consumption of these installations by 30%, the luminous bollards for pedestrian refuges are also concerned. Each of them is equipped with a fluorescent tube, and there are 2700 of them throughout the capital.
In 2012, an experiment with plastic bollards from the Spanish manufacturer Saubacocho was carried out in the 18th arrondissement. But it is finally the terminal of the manufacturer Fareco (ex-Garbarini) which will be retained (its parent company Fayat is already part of the EVESA group), with a modernized version of the model of high terminal (BH) historical Parisian. This plastic bollard has parts in retro-reflective film supplemented by parts backlit by LEDs.
The old model of high bollard in steel tubes continues to be installed in certain sectors with LED lighting instead of the original fluorescent tube.
REPLACEMENT OF REFUGE BOARDS
The new configuration of pedestrian refuges compliant with regulations
Devaux plinths removed
Since the 1960s, the city of Paris has largely equipped its pedestrian refuges with bollard lights or tricolor bollards mounted on a concrete crown 1.20 m in diameter called the Devaux base. But in 1991, European regulations changed and now imposed a minimum diameter of 1.50 m for these bases, or 30 cm more than the Devaux bases. In total, nearly 2,200 intersections are found to be non-compliant.
In 2004, a new problem : the regulations relating to the accessibility of pedestrian crossings for the visually impaired impose a drop of 2 cm to allow the location of the refuge by tactile strips. This height difference is of course not compatible with the Devaux bases.
These plinths are therefore gradually being removed from pedestrian refuges as Parisian intersections are redeveloped, but are still used for traffic lights on Mazas bollards located in the middle of the road in the absence of pedestrian refuges.
THE DEVAUX BASE ARE NO LONGER COMPLIANT
At the dawn of 2010, and while many French cities have already started a large plan to modernize public lighting installations and earthing systems, it is a unanimous observation: the Parisian earthing system is aging or even obsolete, and totally incompatible with the growing eco-political objectives in Paris.
As the maintenance contract held by Citélum, a subsidiary of EDF, is coming to an end, the city of Paris launched a new call for tenders in December 2009 for the entire capital, replacing the 35 contracts in force. This new public market should start from February 2011. Citélum then proposes a new offer in association with GDF Suez energy service and Ineo, but will be dismissed to everyone's surprise due to an incomplete file, leaving the doubt of a political decision for the benefit of a group of companies called EVESA and bringing together ETDE (Bouygues), Vinci Energies, Satelec (Fayat), and Aximum (Colas), which owns all of the maintenance of public lighting and traffic lights of Paris for a period of 10 years and for an amount approaching 900 million euros.
A legal battle will then engage between the town hall of Paris and Citélum which claims the cancellation of the contract attributed to Evesa, as well as the prefect of Paris. The various courts that will examine this file will conclude successively, and definitively by the judgment of the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal of June 16, 2017, that there was no irregularity in the award of the contract to Evesa .
According to the conditions of this MPE, an ambitious objective of reducing the electricity consumption of lighting and the Parisian traffic lights is set at 30% by 2020.
To achieve this, EVESA will replace all the signals operating with incandescent lamps and fluorescent tubes on more than 1,800 Parisian intersections. But that's not going to be enough. The Parisian signals are in such a state that nearly 1500 of them have been replaced, that is to say 10% of the total park, unheard of in Paris. An exceptional order was placed with the official supplier of Parisian signals, Grolleau sheet metal which will deliver 1500 new lights in 10 weeks in 2013.
This public contract ended in 2021, and EVESA was not renewed (read below).
THE ENERGY PERFORMANCE MARKET (EPM)
Optifib
2012
ACTS
2000s
uknow manufacturer
2000s
The concept of pedestrian priority, which has been used on signs and flashing lights at certain intersections since the 1980s, having no real use since pedestrians always have priority once they enter a passage protected according to the code from the road, these signals will gradually be replaced by a simple light signal representing the announcement panel for a pedestrian crossing (A13b). This message is also better understood by foreign users.
Paris will be successively equipped with several models of these panels in the form of a sheet metal box and whose decoration is represented by red and yellow, then red and white LEDs.
The market is divided between the manufacturer Optifib (now Id'Sign), a subsidiary of Signature, itself a subsidiary of Eurovia which is part of the Vinci group, and the manufacturer Aximum (formerly EL-SI), both astonishment part of the group of companies ensuring the maintenance of the Parisian traffic lights.
END OF PEDESTRIAN PRIORITY SIGNS
new Grolleau model since the end of 2015
SER and ECI models
model Thery Hindrick NA
LED, 1990s
The Lille manufacturer Théry Hindrick, who had the market for pedestrian signals in the city of Paris since the 1990s, having ceased its activity at the very beginning of the 2000s, a new model of pedestrian signal appeared. It is strangely the company SER, founded by the former technical and commercial director of Théry Hindrick, which recovered this market with a substantially identical signal model.
SER will share this market with a similar model from the manufacturer ECI.
In 2015, the market changed again, and it was the manufacturer Grolleau, already the holder of the contracts for the supply of the main traffic lights and the Parisian repeaters, which was to supply a new model of pedestrian signal, with rougher shapes than the previous versions.
EVOLUTION OF PEDESTRIAN SIGNALS
Mazas bollards overturned in November 2018
The Champs-Elysées with their new traffic lights
Traffic lights on Champs-Elysées terminal
Creation of refuges on the Champs-Élysées (1946)
Since the post-war period, the Champs-Elysées have been equipped with pedestrian refuges surrounded by illuminated bollards in the middle of the road, allowing pedestrians to take a break from crossing this very wide avenue. These refuges have evolved several times throughout history, and this will be the case again in 2011.
Since the 1970s, the luminous terminals of the refuges have been equipped with a Parisian traffic light placed at a low height, to respect the aesthetics of the avenue and not to spoil the view of the Arc de Triomphe. The problem is that French regulations impose a minimum height of 2 meters for the installation of traffic signals. The city of Paris will therefore give way in 2011 and replace the terminals of the refuges of the Champs-Elysées with lights on Mazas posts. However, these lights are still attached to removable heads which are removed every year on the occasion of the July 14 military parade.
Many of these Mazas bollards will be destroyed during the so-called "yellow vests" demonstrations during the month of November 2018 and the most beautiful avenue in the world will remain for very long months without any fire on its central land.
REPLACEMENT OF THE CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉE ISLANDS
From November 2018, serious events called "yellow vest demonstrations" shook France and particularly Paris. Many degradations were committed by the demonstrators, particularly on the urban furniture. Many traffic lights installations, sometimes confused by the demonstrators with video surveillance installations, were ransacked or set on fire : overturned masts, vandalized lights, burnt cabinets...
The town hall of Paris refused to communicate the amount of the damage, but according to certain sources it could be higher than 1 million euros, just for the tricolor signaling.
NOVEMBER 2018 EVENTS
NEW PEDESTRIANS SIGNAL
Modernized version of the historic Paris traffic light manufactured by Grolleau from 2004
MODERNIZED TRAFFIC LIGHT
From 2010, a turning point will take place for the Parisian traffic lights with the arrival of the famous energy performance market (SME) which will lead to the exceptional replacement of 1500 traffic lights.
In 2018, significant damage will take place in Paris, the traffic lights will be very impacted. These events are comparable to May 1968 in terms of their scale and their damage (see also section 1960 > 1970).
The 2000s swung Paris into all-electronics since the last electromechanical intersection controller was removed in 2004.
The 2005 inventory shows 13,993 traffic lights and 18,441 pedestrian signals installed at 1,729 crossroads.
2000 - 2010
Parisian's signals
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