2023-06-28 17:00:00
80% of French people have heard of the arrival of operators other than SNCF Voyageurs, but are wondering about fares, ticketing and services.
By Thierry Vigoureux According to an Opinion Way poll, 80% of French people favor the opening up of rail transport to competition on national lines, and 77% on regional ones. © FREDERIC SCHEIBER / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP Published on 06/28/2023 at 5:00 p.m.
Trainline, an independent European application for the sale of train and bus tickets, more fluid than SNCF Connect, commissioned a survey from Opinion Way on the perception of the French about the opening up to competition of passenger rail transport, both both national and regional.
Since the first survey, carried out in August 2022, Trenitalia has arrived on the Paris-Lyon-Milan line and the Spanish Renfe is expected next month on Madrid-Barcelona-Marseille and Barcelona-Lyon.
READ ALSOFrance-Spain trains: what Renfe’s discounted prices hide
The main results
80% of respondents have heard of the opening up of passenger trains to competition in France (+ 7 points compared to August 2022); 53% state – rightly – that passenger transport in France is currently open to competition; 80% favor opening up to competition for national lines, and 77% for regional lines; 61% believe that opening up to competition is rather synonymous with advantages for the country (+ 17 points compared to August 2022) and 55% advantages for their region; 80% believe that more attractive fares will be offered; 53% believe that the opening up to competition in the regions will encourage them to take the train more;38 % fear the disappearance of the public service following the opening up to competition in the regions; 26% have already booked a ticket on a platform other than SNCF Connect (Trainline, Trenitalita, Booking, Omio); 13% say that they would go through an aggregator of offers to book regional journeys.
READ ALSOHolidays: SNCF expects another record summerThe impact of opening up to competition on prices is real, measured using Trainline reservation data on the Paris-Lyon-Milan line. Average ticket prices have fallen sharply:
on Paris-Lyon journeys, the drop is 44% compared to the same period (reliable, i.e. excluding Covid) of 2019; on Paris-Milan journeys, the drop is 30% compared in the same period of 2019.
These figures are close to those of Rome-Milan where Italo faces the incumbent operator Trenitalia. Traffic has doubled there at the same time as fares have fallen by 40%. The plane’s market share fell from 50% to 17% and that of the car from 14% to 8%.
Transparency
During a round table bringing together operators (Le Train, Transdev), regions (Pays de Loire, Grand Est), user associations and the Transport Regulatory Authority, it appeared that the conditions for opening competition were slow to come together. “The ecosystem is not ready for the arrival of new players,” observes Transdev, which notes the lack of usable data provided by SNCF Réseau. This does not allow, among other things, to design its maintenance centers.
READ ALSODisruptions in public transport: in Île-de-France, summer will be hotOperators do not have confidence in the workshops of the incumbent operator. The oars could be blocked at the slightest strike. Today, Gare de Lyon in Paris, one in three trains is late due to equipment problems in the workshop. Another major concern is that the legal and social framework for the transfer of personnel is not defined. For example, there is the problem of free tickets for SNCF railway workers and their families.
How will the passenger be treated? The answer remains unclear and this requires discussions at European level to define the rules applicable to a single multimodal ticket (train, bus). This will also be sorely lacking during the Olympic Games in 2024. The DB in Germany, with thirty years of openness to competition, knows how to deal with passengers in the event of delay: at a dedicated counter at the station of arrival, the traveler finds, prepared, a new reservation, a hotel and restaurant voucher. Where you have to palaver weeks in France to be reimbursed. This may be purely impossible in the case, for example, of a Fontainebleau-Lyon, TER + TGV trip via the same Paris station. If the regional train is faulty, you have to take the next TGV and pay (full price) for a new ticket. One can imagine what could be the complexity of such an action with multiple operators.
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