Transilien, which brings together all the trains in the Paris region operated by SNCF, announced on Wednesday January 24 its intention to recruit 900 people in 2024, after a record year in 2023 with 1,350 hires. The SNCF is looking in particular for 400 train, RER and tram-train drivers, 300 station agents “responsible for customer relations at the station” and 130 maintenance technicians.
Like the RATP, which announced on Tuesday an ambitious recruitment plan for 5,300 people, Transilien plans, for the second year in a row, to launch a major recruitment campaign to restore quality service, particularly on the RER, and to be ready to meet the expected crowds during the Olympic Games.
A recruitment delay due to the health crisis
More than 1,350 agents were recruited last year, “almost twice as much as in 2022”, while the initial objective was 900, communicated Transilien. This year again, the operator intends to catch up with “lower recruitment of driving agents due to the health crisis and confinements”which led to major operating problems resulting in train cancellations and regular delays.
The railway group must also expand to ensure the operation of the RER E extension to the west to Nanterre-La Folie, which is scheduled to open in the spring. During her wishes for 2024, the president of the Ile-de-France Mobilités transport authority (IDFM), Valérie Pécresse, asked SNCF and RATP to restore a transport offer equivalent to that of the pre-Covid by March.
According to IDFM statistics, the regularity during peak hours of the RER B − operated jointly with the RATP −, C and D oscillates between 80 and 82%. Valérie Pécresse would like to see this figure exceed at least 90%.