France presses ahead with rail reforms

French transport minister Frédéric Cuvillier has reaffirmed plans to restructure and reform the country’s rail industry.

Plans to create a unified infrastructure manager (GIU) by bringing together RFF, SNCF Infrastructure and traffic management body DCF were first outlined in October last year to coincide with the 75th anniversary of France’s railway operator.

The findings of new research by Jean-Louis Bianco and Jacques Auxiette has now been completed, allowing formal proposals to be drawn up.

Announcing its reform plans, the French government sent out a strong message to Europe’s policy makers, saying it would “defend” its new model during negotiations over the Fourth Railway Package.

The government hopes that greater cooperation between the three organisations will improve the network’s performance and go some way to reducing RFF’s rising debts, which currently grow by 1.5 billion euro each year.

The reformed structure would see the the newly-created GIU and operator SNCF brought under the supervision of an overarching body.

This public group would consist of a supervisory board made up of the presidents of both the GIU and SNCF, employees and a heavy state presence.

French railway operator ARAF will also be given additional powers to guarantee “transparent and non-discriminatory network access for railway undertakings and impartial functioning of the network manager”.




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