FRANCE: Transport authorities from seven régions and the Greater Paris area’s Ile-de-France-Mobilités have asked the Conseil d’Etat, the supreme court for administrative matters, to reduce a planned increase in track access charges.
Infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau’s access charges are calculated on a three-year cycle. Its proposal for an 8% increase has approved by regulator ART, but the régions say this is not sustainable.
Last year Centre-Val-de-Loire told Railway Gazette International that such an increase would limit the growth of rail services, which would be contrary to wider objectives of developing rail traffic.
Ile-de-France-Mobilités pays SNCF Réseau €700m/year in track access charges, the highest payment after the national total of access charges for high speed train operations. The authority told Railway Gazette International that the cost is too high, and technical problems on the network have also increased. It wants to sign a contract with SNCF Réseau covering improvements to the performance of the infrastructure used by RER and Transilien services, but SNCF Réseau has not yet agreed.
The régions are:
- Bourgogne-Franche-Comté;
- Centre-Val-de-Loire;
- Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes;
- Occitanie;
- Nouvelle-Aquitaine;
- Grand-Est;
- Hauts-de-France;
- Ile-de-France Mobilités.
The Conseil d’Etat’s decision is expected in the first quarter of this year.
- UPDATE: The Conseil d’Etat disallowed the objection.
