On the roads, in stations and airports, Friday July 7 was a busy day for the first departures for the summer holidays, before a weekend that promises to be even busier. The peak of traffic jams on Friday was reached at 5:25 p.m., with more than 920 kilometers of accumulated traffic jams. Bison smart warned that traffic would be even denser on Saturday on the main French roads, especially in the Great West, the North, and on the very busy highway 7 (A7), in the Rhône valley.
On the rail side, Parisian travelers from the Gare de l’Est experienced some disappointments on Friday at the end of the day: the driver of an empty TGV at the platform, raised his pantograph (the articulated arm located above the train which is used to pick up the current and transmit it), causing an electric arc. The incident necessitated a power outage, causing train delays of between forty minutes and two hours, according to a spokesperson. Traffic resumed “very gradually”around 6:30 p.m. and should stay “strongly” disturbed “until late evening”warned the SNCF.
SNCF expects 1.4 million customers on long-distance trains this weekend, with 2,300 trains in circulation, “a very important weekend, particularly Gare de Lyon”, in Paris, where was Alain Krakovitch, director of TGV-Intercités at the SNCF. Nowadays, “We sold 10% more tickets than last year”, rejoiced the manager, in the Parisian station serving the Rhone axis and southern destinations. The SNCF added 450,000 places for the summer compared to the same period of 2022, which itself marked an increase of 500,000 places compared to 2021, detailed Mr. Krakovitch.
More than 330,000 passengers per day at Roissy and Orly
Earlier Friday in the nearby Austerlitz station, the Minister Delegate for Transport, Clément Beaune, announced the sale this summer of 200,000 tickets at 19 euros for journeys in Intercités, i.e. the main lines slower than the TGV . These tickets are on sale until July 15, for journeys until August 31, on lines such as Paris-Toulouse, Bordeaux-Marseille, Nantes-Lyon or even Paris-Briançon by night train.
This “popular offer” comes at a time when “we have a lot of debate on train prices”, insisted the Minister. If TGVs are trains “exceptional”the Intercities “are lifestyles”, “these are real lines that need to be rehabilitated today”continued Mr. Beaune. “If the operation goes well, we will continue”, he added. While many French people cannot afford to go on vacation, Mr. Beaune promised a “general mobilization to act on train prices”.
SNCF specifies that 45% of tickets are still available for this summer on long-distance TGV and Intercités journeys: “Not all our trains are full”assured Mr. Krakovitch, while conceding that it would be ” more complicated “ for those who are still looking for places during crossover weekends.
The Paris airports of Roissy and Orly are expecting between 330,000 and 340,000 passengers per day during this weekend of major departures.
After a start to the summer of 2022 marked by a strike which contributed to the loss of tens of thousands of pieces of luggage at Roissy, Augustin de Romanet, the CEO of the manager of Aéroports de Paris, Groupe ADP, promised that this scenario would not happen. would not reproduce. “Our teams have learned from the few difficulties of the past. They are very mobilized and we have a lot of improvements to offer passengers this year.”he assured.