Abroad, the opening up to competition has been beneficial “at the level of supply, demand, quality of service or modal shift“, observed the boss of the regulator.
If the opening to competition of rail transport has recently become a reality in France, “we are rather behind“, Estimated this Thursday morning Bernard Roman, the president of the Transport Regulatory Authority (ART). “Openness was a reality in some countries 30 years ago, in the 1990s. […] We are among the last to open“, he observed on the set of BFM Business.
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While his organization published a study on Wednesday in which it makes 39 recommendations “for a successful opening to competition“, Pointing to the brakes on the entry of new players, the boss of the ex-Arafer has braided the praises of the questioning of the monopoly of the SNCF. “If we look elsewhere, whether at the level of supply, demand, quality of service or modal shift from road to rail, things have increased everywhere, by 15 to 35% in the last ten years“, he claimed, adding that the competition was “good for the rail and for the planet“.
First positive assessment of the arrival of Trenitalia
Bernard Roman has also been critical of the government’s rail strategy in recent decades. “The priority for developing rail is the network, […]but which is in a deplorable state, because for 25 years, we invested in the TGV but we neglected the rest of the network“, he judged, also calling for “change the structure of (railway) tolls“.
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The president of ART has finally drawn a first positive assessment of the arrival of the Italian company Trenitalia, the first to come and titillate the SNCF on the main lines. Since December, it has been offering two round trips per day from Paris-Lyon-Milan. “From what the director of Trenitalia tells me, things are going pretty well.he said, adding that the company would soon expand to three daily trips. “Trenitalia returned to the Paris-Lyon, which is the busiest axis of the TGV in French, without SNCF Voyageurs losing a single train, which means that there is space on the network.»