Opening up passenger trains to competition lowers prices and improves the quality of service, but its benefits will only last if alternative operators win the tenders, Alexandre Gallo, president of Afra, the SNCF competitors club, said on Thursday. .
“The arrival of the competition has mainly served to break the SNCF in quality and prices,” observed the president of the club of competitors of the public group, taking the latest example from Hauts-de-France.
This region announced on Wednesday that it had contracted SNCF to continue operating TER trains in the surroundings of Amiens, after a tender that opposed it to the alternative operator Transdev. SNCF Voyageurs has significantly lowered its prices, offered to run more trains, promised a high punctuality rate and accepted the principle of significant penalties in case of malfunctions.
“What will happen if the SNCF continues to win in the next tender? The rest of the operators will be discouraged, and only the SNCF will remain. The quality is rising again deteriorated because there will be no competitor”. contrary”, launched Alexandre Gallo, also worrying that not everything is ready, on the social side, for the transfer of exploitation from one operator to another.
Several ongoing calls for bids
Of the three tenders launched by the regions for their TER trains, SNCF Voyageurs has so far won two and Transdev one. The next results are expected in the summer in Pays-de-la-Loire and Ile-de-France. Other regions, such as Bourgogne-France-Comté, have extended their lease with the incumbent at the same time.
Alexandre Gallo, CEO of DB Cargo France (the Deutsche Bahn rail freight transport subsidiary), also complained about the consequences for freight transport of the sharp rise in electricity, which went from 112 to 473.51 euros per MWh this year.
“We have no vision, we have no help,” he lamented.
“The risk is the inverse modal change, the return to the road”, which is “more competitive”, benefits from government aid and is less disturbed by rail strikes, warned Alexandre Gallo. The railway should be less competitive as the tolls charged by SNCF Réseau should increase considerably next year, according to him.
Paradox when we are interested in the Planet, “diesel traction is cheaper” than the use of electric locomotives for freight trains, he lamented. However, “the market is there,” she said.
Source: BFM TV
