Lhe RER B broke irregularity records in August with a 73% regularity index. Signaling failures, material problems, missing personnel… added to the usual malfunctions and line overload. The RER D is not to be outdone, with regular delays and incidents.
This summer we also saw train cuts on the RER C, on the other Transilien lines and on the buses, for lack of staff or as a cost saving measure. Indeed, the transport offer has still not returned to its level before the Covid-19 crisis. It is not uncommon to have a train every hour, or a metro every twenty minutes.
The dysfunctions are such that associations have sounded the alarm: users are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And yet, at a time of the climate crisis and inflation, the supply of inexpensive and low-polluting public transport must more than ever be a priority of our public policies.
Ultra-accounting vision
Unfortunately, the Ile-de-France region, led by Valérie Pécresse (Les Républicains), is failing in all its duties and in all its promises of a “transport revolution”. All projects contributing to improving existing transport malfunction, are delayed and/or have additional costs that are difficult to overcome. Eole, NexTEO, tramway 12, new RER trains… The last board meeting of Ile-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) showed that all these projects were on hold.
The SNCF – in particular SNCF Réseau – is largely responsible for this fiasco, as is Alstom, unable to meet the deadlines and costs announced.
The SNCF may release itself from any public service commitment; it was the government of Edouard Philippe who decided to make it a limited company, and it is still the State which asks him to no longer have deficits, in the name of the sacrosanct golden rule! However, this ultra-accounting vision forgets that well-maintained rails and tunnels are not debt, they are above all public assets, an investment for the future.
Valérie Pecresse and the right-wing majority in the region hasten to put the privatization of transport in Ile-de-France as a top priority. There is still more urgent, especially since to cope with the shortage of drivers and conductors and attract new recruits, it will not be necessary to skimp on their status. This is really not the time to light the social fuse!
Sharp increases in operating costs
The Court of Auditors has also alerted to the finances of public transport in Ile-de-France. Unable to overcome the decline in attendance, the arrival of new RER, metro and tram lines suggests large increases in operating costs, without at any time considering new sustainable resources. Not to mention the energy crisis which will severely affect the cost of fuel and electricity for public transport.
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