Inflation also affects the railway. Given the future substantial increase in its energy bill, the SNCF has been warning for several months that it will not have no other choice to increase their rates next year. While the French are strangled by inflation at all levels, the Minister of Transport Cléments Beaune has asked to “work on ticket prices in a tariff shield”. The government must present the device or devices to mitigate this inflation next week.
In Occitania, President Carole Delga announced on Wednesday the launch of an offer at 1 euro every first weekend of the month in regional TERs as during pollution peaks. A step towards a flat rate approach like in Germany with the future unlimited monthly ticket at 49 euros on all regional transport, replacing the ephemeral 9-euro bill that had been a resounding success this summer?
without consistency
Unlikely. According to the National Federation of Associations of Transport Users (FNAUT), “the French regions would still have to coordinate their respective fares, which are often disparate and do not make life easier for travelers, and which have greater financial means or their own taxation,” he writes.
And underline that “the State should also do its part and give impetus, which is not the case at the moment: execution contract between the State and SNCF Réseau worrying about the future of regional lines, suppression of the parliamentary amendment of 3 thousand million euros aims to reinforce the financing of the railway network and, on the other hand, the subsidy of fossil fuels worth 8,000 million euros in 2022”.
Last nail in the coffin: “Unfortunately, the French urban and regional public transport system would be incapable of absorbing an influx of passengers like the one observed in Germany”, summarizes Bruno Gazeau.
“The French networks do not offer, with rare exceptions, the same density of service, in frequency of passage and daily amplitude, as their counterparts on the other side of the Rhine, and the equipment is often insufficient, either for passengers or for the transport of bikes.”, he continues.
Free, another mirage
What annihilates any desire for full and free daily trains, wanted in particular by certain presidents of regions like Carole Delga.
Who also calls “with my counterparts presidents of Regions to implement a plan of 100,000 million euros over 10 years in favor of aging or missing railway infrastructures.”
A situation that contrasts with the German approach which, according to the association, is characterized by “speed of decision” and “the agreement between Berlin and the federal states, each contributing 1,500 million euros, or 3,000 million euros in total for fund this national subscription aimed at developing the use of regional and local public transport (only mainline trains are excluded from the system) and to combat global warming Berlin also provides the Länder with an additional allocation of 1 billion for the fund of regionalization of transport (8 billion euros per year)”.
A double tariff shield on the tickets?
According to the latest statements, the French coat of arms should come in two parts. “For those who use the train a lot and whose income is modest, that there is no increase, that there is no inflation of the price of the train ticket. And for all train consumers, that train tickets increase in a lesser proportion. than inflation, at least than the inflation observed by SNCF in its transport costs”, Olivier Véran, government spokesman announced last week. It remains to be seen how this shield will be applied to TER lines whose prices are set by the regions.
Source: BFM TV
