I’ve always enjoyed noticing how, when we take a step back and observe people’s movements, our cities resemble a complex anthill. The data gathered by public transportation companies looks like a goldmine to me.
I was very happy when I discovered that the RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) publish a lot of data. It’s when I started a project of a 3D cartography of the railway system. Would it not amazing to see how are organized the tunnels ? What’s happening below the ground ? How deep is each line ? Given that the lines have different age (the most ancient line 1 was built in 1900, and 3 more lines 15,16 and 17 will be finished in 2030), can we explain the trajectory and depth of each line ?
Online, RATP published the 2D coordinates of the stations and pathways of railway between them, but they don’t give the altitude nor depth… It’s why I started to count the steps of each station, to infer the height or depth of the platform of any station ! If I interpolate between stations, I can reconstruct to whole infrastructure ! Let’s dive into the process.
Topography of Paris
2D coordinates
Crowdsourcing
Better than to count all steps of more than 300 subway stations, I asked on Reddit and to friends to send me their measurements.