SNCF Voyageurs has won the Hauts-de-France region’s (HDF) tender for the operation of passenger trains. The process marked the first open tender in the region. They will operate passenger trains on the tracks around Amiens. This concession contract is for a period of 10 years and 6 months, starting on 15 December 2024.

SNCF Voyageurs beat four other bidders, including Groupement Transdev Rail, Regione RDGL Rail, Renfe Viajeros Sociedad Mercantil Estatal and Arriva International. The contract announced by the regional authority on 30 March should generate a turnover of 500 million for the SNCF.

The Amiens area service represents about 15 percent of the regional rail network. It includes the Amiens to Abancourt and Rouen, Abbeville, Albert, Saint-Quentin, Laon, Compiègne and Creil lines, as well as Creil to Beauvais, Beauvais to Le Tréport, Abbeville to Le Tréport and Laon to Hirson. These lines have an estimated annual traffic volume of 4.2 million train/kilometres for 211 million passenger/kilometres.

Franck Dhersin, 8th vice-president in charge of mobility, transport infrastructure and ports for the HDF region, discusses this decision, which was voted on at the plenary session on 30 March. “The ambition of the Hauts-de-France region is for it to work much better than it does today. (…) We want passengers to be seated, to be on time, and to be informed.”

Changes afoot

Dhersin expressed a desire to “escape this monopoly system” of the SNCF in order to be able to negotiate, to open a dialogue to benefit the 140,000 daily users. Thus, the entire HDF network will be open to competition by 2029. In this specific tender, he explains that the SNCF nonetheless presented the best bid. “Today SNCF was afraid of losing the first tender and systematically responded favourably to everything we had been asking for years,” said Dhersin. He also said that the region would terminate the contract if the targets were not met for two consecutive years.

Xavier Bertrand, President of the Hauts-de-France Regional Council, puts the emphasis on pragmatism. In order to increase the regularity target from 96 to 98.5 percent, and to increase the offer by 9.5 points, the penalties for the operator will be increased. According to Bertrand, a train cancellation will be penalised to the tune of 1,000 euros, and increased by 50 per cent in rush hour. This is a huge increase on the €600 penalties for SNCF that were in place before the new contract was signed. In addition, a short train or under delivery will be penalised to the tune of 3,000 euros.

Further reading:

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• SNCF and Nevomo to cooperate on MagRail
• French ART report confirms post-pandemic rail progress