The communities recognized a very complicated commissioning of the first “RER in the provinces” two years ago. But they are now satisfied with the progress made, although there is still room for improvement.
“Punctuality and regularity are at satisfactory levels”: two years after the launch of the European Metropolitan Express Network (Reme), the “Strasbourg RER”, elected officials from the Grand Est Region and the Eurometropolis are satisfied with the progress made, conceding however chaotic beginnings.
The Reme, which constitutes the first “RER in the provinces”, celebrated its anniversary in mid-December. It was expected to provide users of the Alsatian capital and surrounding communities with 800 additional trains per week when it was launched at the end of 2022, with more frequent passages and an extended timetable.
But its commissioning turned out to be very complicated, between a lack of drivers, insufficient equipment and climatic hazards. Faced with an additional workload and recruitment difficulties, the SNCF faced a very ongoing social conflict, which led to a reorganization of work schedules, at the cost of an increase in bonuses.
“The ambition that was ours could not be achieved at first,” agrees Franck Leroy, president (various right) of the Grand Est Region. “It got us a pretty normal stream of criticism.”
350 trains per day in Strasbourg
But after two years of ramping up, Reme now offers 700 additional trains per week and is getting closer to its initial objective.
“It’s without equivalent on a national scale,” continues Franck Leroy. “Today we run as many TER trains every day as the Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine regions combined, two regions larger than us in terms of population and size. Strasbourg is by far the busiest provincial station, with for example 150 more trains than Lyon-Part-Dieu and twice as many trains as a station like Bordeaux.”
Strasbourg station sees 350 trains pass through each day, including around fifty TGVs, or 100 trains more than before the launch of Reme.
Stéphanie Dommange, TER Grand Est regional director at SNCF, welcomes this “innovation” and to see “traffic increasing twice as quickly on the perimeter of the Eurometropolis as in the rest of the region”. Some Reme lines saw their attendance jump by more than 40%.
Attendance up 15% since 2023
Pia Imbs, president of the Strasbourg Eurometropolis, reports “much fewer complaints, trains which arrive on time” and offer the possibility to local residents to take the train rather than their car, ” an interesting alternative at a time when the cost of gasoline remains a major problem.”
Overall, Reme attendance has increased by 15% since the start of the 2023 school year, according to elected officials. However, they recognized that there remained “room for improvement”, particularly on the punctuality of several lines, and stressed that certain hazards remained uncontrollable (abandoned luggage blocking stations, passenger accidents, etc.).
Nationally, 15 other Metropolitan Network Express Services projects (the Serm, equivalent of the RER in the provinces) were approved in other large cities last June.
“Today all the other regions are looking at Strasbourg,” continues Franck Leroy. “This is the demonstrator and everyone is interested in the way in which things have been implemented on the scale of Strasbourg and the Alsatian territory.”
