A page is turned. The SNCF is apprêterait to remove the transport car by train December 2019, ahead of The new yorker . Cars perched on the platforms of the cars circulating on the track for the last time on December 14, after sixty years of good and loyal services. For its part, the SNCF confirmed to the Paris consider the service to stop, without being affirmative on this decision.
“AutoTrain no longer the best way to satisfy the customers of this market niche: it would be necessary to achieve a filling rate of the order of 85 % while simultaneously conducting a high tariff increase is to justify the relevance of a train. However, two-thirds of the current customers consider the service as expensive, so that it is very onerous”, one can read in a document unveiled by the daily. For example for a journey from Paris to Frejus, the service AutoTrain is charged € 266.
The service had already been greatly restricted two years ago. Thus, the number of stations served was increased from thirteen to six stations served at Avignon (Vaucluse), Marseille (Bouches du Rhône), Toulon (Var), Fréjus (Var), Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) and of Paris-Bercy. The number of cars transported has been divided by two, from 62 000 in 2016 to 33 500 in 2018.
“A non-ecological sense”
The portrait-robot of the clients of this service is well known. It is the inhabitants of Paris or the Hauts-de-Seine, france aged more than 60 years, and very largely from the socio-professional categories superior who return to their second home during the summer.
The trade union Sud-Rail denounces the end of the service “in the midst of a debate on the ecological transition, it is a nonsense,” says the Paris Fabien Villedieu, the union Sud-Rail. The associations of the public transport users resent this new choice of the SNCF. After the end of the night trains or transverse lines, and now the AutoTrain, they wonder what is the next service on the list. The city? question some. “The cars today are transported by overnight train would be chauffeur-driven or transported by truck. Some new cities could be served, but the new routings would be slower or much more expensive than by train,” was recently alerted to the Fnaut, users association.
The site of the SNCF, has already taken the lead and offers alternative services to clients who wish to route their vehicle. As well, on the website Yes SNCF, the group offers to ship his car from a particular driver, by truck, by professional transport companies or, on a few destinations, by Autotrain. And the rates are not the same. For example, to make travel a Clio from Paris to Nice, it will cost 98 euros if it is driven by a particular driver, the price goes up to 504 euros in the truck and even to 884 euros if it passes through a professional driver. By AutoTrain, the service is charged 243 euros, which is well below the costs of transport via professionals.
” SEE ALSO – The pictures of the TGV of the future planned for 2023 by the SNCF.
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