Xavier Bertrand, the president of the region Hauts-de-France, has often praised the opening up to competition in the rail. The elected representatives from his region go to the act. On Thursday, they will vote on the draft of call for tender for the regional trains, which are fully open to competition since the passing of the act in the past year.
on Tuesday during a press conference, Franck Dhersin, vice-president of the region in charge of transport, gave details of the ten lines of potentially assigned to an other operator other than SNCF. It is a question of a few radial connecting Paris to Laon, Amiens, Saint-Quentin, at Beauvais, but also of the whole fabric of local rail.
The region believes that the quality of the service, currently provided by the SNCF Mobilities, has considerably worsened: cancellation, delays, breakdowns… “We believe in the train and public transport,” pointed out Franck Dhersin. According to him, the opening to competition does not aim to “save money” to the region. But it “will force all of the world”, SNCF understood, to “improve” the service to users, future customers.
litigation
The Hauts-de-France forecast that the call for tenders to be launched in April 2020, which would assign the lines in October 2021 and to operate mid-December of 2022 or at the beginning of the year 2023.
One caveat, however: to develop a specification, the region demanded that SNCF Mobilities of data, both technical and financial. Failing to obtain it, the Hauts-de-France decided last week to seize the rail regulator (Arafer) to initiate a contentious procedure. “We need to know all that relates to the lines, and the condition of the rolling stock, the number of officers and their profile, so that interested operators have in mind the payroll, explained Tuesday Laurent Vercruysse, the director-general of services. Today, one does not have this information.”
Mid-February, the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’azur had already published the notice that will be followed in February 2020, the call for tender for the lines Marseille-Toulon-Nice and Nice-Tende. In January, the State had opened the ball with the launch of a procedure for two lines of “trains balance of the territory (TET), Nantes-Bordeaux and Nantes-Lyon, brought together in a single batch. In all cases, SNCF Mobility, will try his luck to win the tenders given in the game.
