The year 2019 was marked by the record strike of SNCF agents against the pension reform. The public enterprise was greatly impacted by the social movement, with a loss of turnover estimated at nearly 700 million euros. 2020 will also be a milestone in the history of SNCF: a savings plan of 200 million euros, announced Jean-Pierre Farandou, the new director. But also and above all the effective concretization of the opening to competition on passenger transport on the rail network.
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"We must be able to manage maintenance on our own"
The first declared competitor of SNCF is called Transdev. It is a French transport group present in 20 countries and which notably manages the trams of Grenoble, Montpellier or Rouen. Transdev positioned itself on the first deadline: the Intercités Nantes / Lyon and Nantes / Bordeaux lines. The call for candidates ends on Sunday, and the operation will actually start in 2022, but the group has some ideas for these two lines, with 20 years of experience in Germany. On the other side of the Rhine, Transdev succeeded in increasing the number of passengers on a line near Düsseldorf from 500 to 23,000 daily passengers, by adjusting the timetables and the frequency of the trains.
The French network is arousing real interest within the group, but which is not without asking questions. "We must be able to manage maintenance on our own, to have a long-term device, at least more than ten years, and to have all the data," recalls Edouard Hénaut, the general manager of Transdev.
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Because the challenge for SNCF competitors will be to have access to the same levels of information as the historic company. This competition will take place under the watchful eye of the Transport Regulatory Authority, which requests that SNCF Réseau, the rail operator, be as independent as possible from SNCF Voyageurs.