Paris Underground - Metro - The Tube 2008

Le métro de Paris est un des systèmes de transport en commun desservant la ville de Paris (France) et son agglomération. Il comporte 16 lignes en site propre, essentiellement souterraines, totalisant 213 kilomètres de voies. Devenu un des symboles de Paris, il se caractérise par la densité de son réseau au cœur de Paris et par son style architectural homogène influencé par l'Art nouveau.

La première ligne du métro de Paris a été construite à l'approche de l'Exposition universelle de 1900. Elle sera inaugurée quelques mois après le début de l'exposition. Le réseau s'est ensuite rapidement densifié dans Paris intra muros jusqu'à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Après une pause durant les « décennies voitures » (1950-1970), plusieurs lignes existantes ont été prolongées en proche banlieue. Les choix effectués à sa conception (faibles distances entre les stations, capacité réduite des rames) limitent aujourd'hui les possibilités d'extension du réseau. Le métro de Paris a cependant inauguré à la fin du siècle dernier une nouvelle ligne entièrement automatisée, la ligne 14, destinée notamment à soulager la ligne A du RER.

Le métro transporte aujourd'hui environ 4,5 millions de passagers par jour (1,365 milliard pour l'année 2005). Il dessert 298 stations (382 points d'arrêt), dont 62 offrent une correspondance avec une autre ligne. Le métro parisien se classe, pour le nombre de passagers transportés, en 4e position derrière Moscou (2,5 milliards), Tokyo et Mexico, en 7e position pour la longueur de ses lignes derrière Londres (421 km), New York, Séoul, Tokyo, Moscou, Madrid (mais 1re position si on inclut les lignes de RER) et en 3e position pour le nombre de stations derrière New York (468 stations) et Séoul.

A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated or metro(politan) system is a railway — usually in an urban area — with a high capacity and frequency of service and grade separation from other traffic. In most of the world, these systems are known as a "Metro." In London the system is called the "Underground" but popularily known as 'the Tube', in Buenos Aires "Subte", (a short colloquial word for subterráneo, Spanish for underground), "Metrô" (short for Metropolitan) in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and in most of North America and in Glasgow, Scotland, "subway." The oldest rapid transit system in the world is the London Underground, which opened in 1863 and was then called the Metropolitan Railway. The Underground remains one of the most extensive rapid transit systems in the world.
The two primary ways that subway tunnels are constructed are by cut and cover and tunnel boring.
One hundred sixty-two cities have rapid transit systems, totaling more than 8,000 km (4,900 miles) of track and 7,000 stations.Twenty-five cities have new systems under construction.

The term rapid transit is used to describe a rail-based transportation system used within urban areas to transport people. The term is often more specific, as in common definitions of metro or heavy rail, in which the transit system also must meet the following criteria: * an urban, electric mass transit railway system * completely independent from other traffic * with high capacity and service frequency

Rapid transit systems can be elevated, on ground or underground. It is quite common for the city core network to be underground, although it varies from system to system which solution is used outside the city core.

The terms subway and underground are often used to describe a rapid transit that operates solely or primarily underground. In some cities the word subway applies to the entire system, while in others only to those parts that are actually underground, but is commonly called metro. Rapid transit systems that are above street level may be called "elevated" systems in the US (often shortened to El or L, as Chicago's system is popularly referred to). In the UK, elevated systems are generally classified as light railways such as the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in east London, although not all British light railways are elevated.

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