Transportation. Price increases and delays do not prevent the success of the train in France

The French still favor the train. Attendance at this mode of transport increased by 5% in one year in 2023, according to the Transport Authority (ART). “The train is the only mode of transport to have exceeded its pre-Covid-19 attendance level in France by 2023,” she says in a report published this Wednesday, specifying that the share of trips made by train is increasing ( 10.4%) to the detriment of the car and the plane on domestic routes.

Compared to 2019, regional train (TER) ridership even jumped by 21% while that of TGV increased by 6%. However, there are fewer trains than five years ago since the SNCF has shed nearly 40 TGVs in the meantime, even if the current trains offer more seats than the old ones.

Record for TGVs in 2023…

TGVs are therefore increasingly full, with a record occupancy rate reaching 77% in 2023. However, the price of high-speed travel continues to increase, particularly low-cost services such as Ouigo. Last year, prices increased by 10% on this type of service, while the price of the classic TGV increased by 6%. These price increases, combined with better filling of the trains, allowed the SNCF to increase its revenues “which returned to their 2019 level”.

“The quality of service of the rail offer has deteriorated again in 2023,” noted the ART. Not only have there been fewer scheduled trains, but strikes against pension reform and bad weather – which mainly affects TER trains – have caused punctuality to drop.

…despite a decreasing supply

“The number of trains that actually ran and arrived on time at their terminus compared to the number of trains planned” thus increased from 81% in 2022 to 78% last year. In five years, the supply of high-speed trains has also decreased by 15% due to the scrapping of several trainsets.

Unlike passenger transport, rail freight experienced a dark year in 2023 with a 17% drop in goods transported. The share of rail in freight transport has therefore deteriorated further, falling below 9%, far from the European average. Finally, the ART alerts on the state of the network. Although maintenance investments increased in 2023, they remain lower than 2019 levels and simply make it possible to stabilize the age of the infrastructure (28.4 years), without renewing it.