100 billion euro plan for rail transport in France, but for what?

Has France finally won its major project to upgrade French rail? Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne on February 24 pledged to invest 100 billion euros by 2040. He thus endorsed the ambitious recommendations of the Council on Orientation on Infrastructure (COI). We must now move on to the exercise: plan the work and its financing. This is the role of state-territory planning agreements. Regional heads of state are expected Obtain their framework letters to initiate negotiations with regional leaders and other local authorities, and Put the execution of projects on the agenda. However, these missives were suspended for the last arbitration of Matignon, who had promised them before June.

On the financial side, all players are waiting to know how much the state is willing to put on the table. Percy believes that much has already been done to support the public enterprise, counting first of all the results of the beneficiary subsidiaries of SNCF – SNCF Voyageurs and the logistics company Geodis. But that won’t be enough to cover the 5 billion to 6 billion euros a year bill provided by the plan. Not much more than the European funding put forward by the Ministry of Transport. Tax on kerosene or new puncture on highways under consideration.

Once the funding plan is confirmed, what will the money be used for? Seven priorities stand out.

Refresh the network

At SNCF, in internal jargon, this is called “grey debt”. It is not a financial debt, but delays have accumulated in the necessary renovation of installations that allow trains to run (tracks, catenaries, switches, etc.). As of 2011, the network of daily trains and medium gauge lines has become obsolete to make way for investments in new high-speed lines.

This overall delay in regeneration is a “grey debt” estimated by SNCF Réseau at 60 billion euros. The problem has been widely documented: the 2005 Riviere Report (named after a professor specializing in railways at the University of Lausanne); 2017 audit; In February 2022, the opinion of the Transport Regulatory Commission on the State-SNCF 2021-2030 Performance Agreement; And, in early 2023, the IOC report.

To begin with, an obvious observation: the average age of our tracks is 28.6 years in 2021, compared to 17 years for the German network. Aging has been curbed by the closure of old small lines and the start of modernization work, particularly in the Ile-de-France network. But it is not enough in other railways. Conclusion: The Channel Consistency Index (LCI), which measures the condition of the network, is not good. A new train has an ICV of 100, an end train of 10; A train has exceeded its theoretical useful life by five years, zero. A rail network in good condition consists of LCI 55. Currently, French rail is around 48.8. In 2016 it was 46.5. Therefore, in its report, the COI recommends increasing the state-funded network regeneration effort from 2.8 billion euros to 3.5 billion to 4 2 billion euros per year – that is 1 billion euros more – by 2040, renewing the age of the main lines of the network by two to three years, and LCI in 2040. It can also be set to 55. “Remember this route is 30 years old in France, 17 years in Germany and 15 years in Switzerland”, hammered Jean-Pierre Farandou before the finance committee of the National Assembly, which on April 12 received the boss of the SNCF for the first time since 2013. Total cost: approximately 20 billion euros.

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