Want to reach the other end of town? No problem. You take out your mobile phone, write the place you want to go on Google Maps and follow the instructions. Or even easier. That you are in Madrid and want to switch from Principe Pío to Sales, for example? Well, you download the Metro app and get access to precise information about the route, connections, times and even estimated capacity.

Unless you’re the friend who looks at screens while traveling, nothing happens: You have plans on paper.

However, things were not always this easy. In the 30s and 40s of the last century it was necessary to navigate around the bustling and eclectic Paris metro, whose network in 1935 consisted of 13 lines. good knowledge of the seasons and the city itself. If you’re a newcomer or don’t have a good grasp of the map, you risked winding up around one of Europe’s largest capitals.

Recognizing this problem, around 1937, those in charge of the Paris metro devised an open and educational system for passengers, even the most novice, to find their way through its network of galleries, lines and connections: Plans Indicateurs Lumineux d’itinéraires, better known by the acronym PILI . After all, maybe nothing existed 85 years ago. smart phones nor GPS systems, but electronics were already there to help those who needed to know the best route.

Follow the bulbs

Generally speaking, PILI was an electromechanical map of the subway equipped with light bulbs and a horizontal panel with buttons that let passengers choose different stations.

Let’s say you used the service for the first time, didn’t speak a little French and wanted to move from Pont Marie to Porte de Charenton. PILI made it easy for you: you just had to press the button of the last station -by default it understands which games of the terminal you are using it – and its mechanism illuminated the way on the map, marking each of the stops.

A light bulb lights up for each station you travel to to your destination.

Easy.

Intuitive.

There isn’t much room for mistakes.

Even the stations were arranged alphabetically.

Maybe he didn’t report on capacity or events, for example smart phonesbut of course it wasn’t Not bad for 1937. In fact, the system worked so well that soon more than 80 of these devices were deployed in Paris, and by the 1980s – precisely in 1981 – RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens) was managing 184.

Many Parisian children saw the PILI as a large set of light bulbs and switches, and its characteristic boards became part of the urban landscape of the city of lights, just like the streetlights or the Seine promenade. What grew out of sheer necessity, the benevolent desire to keep passengers from swarming in the subway astray, was eventually elevated to the category of almost a symbol, a piece of urban décor perfectly identifiable to a Parisian. the white logo, the blue and red of the London Underground, or the reddish-red rhombus that identifies the one in Madrid.

However, just because it has permeated the visual identity of the neighbors doesn’t mean it enjoys the time. Over the years technology has improved and it has proven how troublesome it is to maintain these electromechanical maps. PILI lost interest.

In the 1990s, authorities believed it was wiser to adapt to the new times and began implementing Plan Lumineux Interactive (PLI), a device adapted to extensions and CD-i technology. In the 90s and 2000s the old PILI was losing power. Already in the second decade of the XXI the Zenway system was adopted, digitized and made more complete.

In symbolism and memorabilia, old PILI panels probably continue to take the cake. It is the footprint they leave that inspires works of art and literary passages.

“As a child, I had to be plucked from this painting whose lighting I wanted to test,” author Jane Sautière recalls. Stations (between lines)—. Sometimes the constellation was spectacular when by chance chose a route with many connections. Heavenly figures took shape, Ursa Major and Ursa Major, Coronas del Sur, Capricorn and Aquarius… A sky so perfectly lit that I thought I could travel under it. In the end, nothing can erase that hope.”

There are even those who resist the passage of time and eventually take their own PILI home. We can still see the rest at some stations in Paris – closed, yes.

A wink for the nostalgic.

Pictures | Wikipedia