The report, L’avenir du Transport ferroviaire (The future of rail transport) passed into government hands earlier this month, and is none too flattering about the state of the country’s rail services, advocating a total review, a la Beeching, of France’s rail network. It points out the structure of SNCF Mobilités and SNCF Réseau are not compatible with the EU rules on state aid for rail, a point made often and loudly by overseas critics.
So what of freight specifically? When France abandoned the idea of an ‘ecotax’ on HGVs nothing took its place and Spinetta, a staunch socialist from birth, advocates a new set of taxation options to push rail as a favourable option over road haulage. The European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) unsurprisingly welcomes Spinetta’s conclusion which it says is that the French rail system needs more competition. The ERFA says it salutes the Prime Minister’s lucidity quoting selected statements based on the Spinetta Report:
“The situation is alarming or even untenable. SNCF has to present ‘before summer’ and after consultation, ‘a strategic corporate project’ guaranteeing ‘a better quality of service for all the transport users’ and a ‘more efficient management’, while containing a new social contract with the railway staff members who must benefit, according to him, from the same working conditions as all the French, i.e. those of the Labour Code.”
The ERFA is further delighted that the Prime Minister has distanced himself from the report which sought to facilitate the closure of small, uncrowded lines. On the contrary, he recommends that the SNCF align its costs with European standards, when ‘to drive by train in France costs 30% more than elsewhere’. It points out that freight charges should be kept below the marginal cost, adjusted to the undercharging of the other transport modes, as allowed today by European legislation in light of no penalties for road hauliers with the absence of a ‘distance driven’ toll.
The ERFA targets five specific points in view of what it hopes will be a full reform:
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