From this Wednesday, January 8, taking the train will cost more for the French. The SNCF announces an increase in ticket prices of 1.5% on average for the TGV and 1.9% for the Intercités. The company explains it by an increase in its costs in 2025 but few know how the prices of our train tickets are set.
For TGVs for example, previously users paid according to the number of kilometers they traveled but now, it is an algorithm that decides the price. The latter is based on three principles : the more the train is filled, the more you pay, the more you buy at the last moment, the more you pay and finally, the system will compare the price of other means of transport such as buses and planes and set its price accordingly.
If this system is more lucrative than the previous one, it must be remembered that the TGV is a commercial service and that‘it must therefore be profitable to operate. This is not the case for other trains, for example, regional trains or Intercités, which are public services. They are subsidized by the regions, for the TERs and by the State for the Intercités. They are therefore the ones who set the price of the tickets, depending on what they are prepared to invest in this service. In 2023, it was 6.2 billion euros
An old and poor railway network
What is very expensive today for rail transport is above all the maintenance of the rail network, which has a direct impact on the price of our tickets. Companies must pay to maintain the network, a bit like on the highway where there is a toll. The French network is old and in poor condition, so it needs to be renovated, which inevitably costs users money.
On a 100 euro TGV ticket, you pay 40 euros toll. On a TER ticket, it is between 20 and 30%. This case is specific to France since among our Italian or Spanish neighbors, the State covers a large part of the toll priceso tickets are cheaper. The French state did not make this choice.
It is therefore partly because of this toll that the price of our tickets is increasing a little again this year. The rest of the explanation is quite simply that the SNCF sees its costs increasing with inflation and rising energy prices and that it invests to renovate and buy new trains.
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