The Société du Grand Paris (SGP), the state owned industrial company responsible for the Grand Paris Express metro project, has contracted Nokia to deploy a private LTE as part of the network extension in Paris, France.
Development of the Grand Paris Express is billed by the SGP as the largest transport project in Europe. It comprises four automatic metro lines around Paris , including a ring route around the city (line 15) and lines (16, 17, and 18) connecting developing neighbourhoods with the city centre, business districts, research clusters, and airports. Two lines are being extended; all existing infrastructure is being upgraded.
Engie Solutions is handling the upgrade and extension of rail infrastructure, and takes responsibility for the overall project. The upgrade work covers 200 kilometres of new lines, 68 new metro stations, and all the metro trains running on metro lines 15, 16 and 17 in the French capital. The metro service will serve 165,000 companies and transport two million commuters a day when it is finally completed in 2030.
The metro network system continues to be used in the meantime, and the private LTE component will go live as it is deployed. Private LTE project will provide “critical, high-speed wireless connectivity to meet all future operational and maintenance requirements, as well as emergency and security needs,” said Nokia.
The plan is for an private LTE radio solution for operational communications indoors and outdoors across all Grand Paris Express stations, lines and depots. It will support voice, data, and video services, including transmission of on-board video surveillance.
Matthieu Bourguignon, vice president for Nokia’s enterprise group in Europe, said: “Creation of the new Grand Paris metro is an ambitious project. Our selection confirms Nokia’s place as a leader in the transport marketplace and in critical network solutions such as GSM-R, 4.9G/LTE, 5G, IP/MPLS, cybersecurity and IoT analytics.”
Nokia said over 130 “large enterprise customers” are already “using” its private LTE and 5G networks.
ENGIE Solutions will handle design and construction of the rail transport infrastructure, covering tram, metro, and rail lines. It is responsible for “steering the project value chain”, through study, purchasing, construction, testing, and commissioning of the service.
Jean-Luc Figuereo, director of transport infrastructure at ENGIE Solutions, said: “This project is not just a transport project, it is also a big digital transformation project. We are thus helping to create the cities, neighborhoods and infrastructure of tomorrow that are more resilient and connected to their ecosystems.”
