Amiens: several services of the Ametis bus network remain disrupted after a fire at the Rivery depot

In the aftermath of the fire which affected a technical room from the Ametis bus depot in Rivery, several services of the Amiens Métropole public transport network will remain disrupted for several days, even several weeks, Keolis management indicated this Thursday. The fire, which caused no injuries, led to the total loss of power grid and computer systems. Electrical work to connect priority systems is underway. Bus lines are runningsans perturbation majeure“, says Keolis.

As of yesterday, the network control center was moved to the municipal police supervision center to ensure the continued operation of call buttons and geolocation of buses on the network, but several services remain unavailable. THE information terminals at stopswhich allow you to know the time of passage of the next bus in real time, and the ticket vending machines do not work. If you wish to buy a ticket in the Mobility Spaces, impossible to pay by credit cardonly by check or cash. Payment by credit card directly on the bus or in cash with the driver remains possible. It is also currently impossible to create subscriptions.

The Allo Ametis line, i.e. the customer relations center, reservation by telephone of transport on demand, management of customer accounts, bicycle rental and management of fines, was restored this Thursday evening.

School transport, i.e. the Tempo lines, and the on-demand transport service will be provided normally next week.

A cost for the metropolis

This fire will weigh on the budget of Amiens Métropole, its president, Alain Gest, already anticipates. In particular by paying overtime to agents who can no longer recharge their vehicles at the Rivery depot and must therefore go further: “for example, they will recharge on devices at the end of the line, and no longer at the bus depot. This will delay them returning to the depot and therefore counts as working time. And we don't know the duration of the disruption, we know that the work to restore this premises will last a very long time. But today, the depot is without heat and the computers are shut down. It will be necessary to make a long-term assessment, once we have experienced the entire period of deterioration and we have information on the real causes of what happened. We must question the fact that equipment that is only five years old already has a serious defect. And then also measure the consequences of probably partially taking insurance into account.“