Has the train become a mode of transport for the richest? The SNCF denies this, claiming to keep prices affordable thanks to its Ouigo offer or its reduction cards, but the regular increase in prices inevitably keeps the working classes away from high-speed travel.
The last major study on the sociology of TGV users dates back to 2019. At the time, the Transport Regulatory Authority (ART) interviewed 7,409 users of this mode of transport to draw up a typical profile. As a result, executives and higher intellectual professions (CSP +) represented 48% of those questioned, compared to 10% in the entire French population.
Conversely, while workers and employees represented 45% of the population at the time, only 19% of TGV customers came from this socio-professional category. Since this study, the price of a TGV ticket has increased by 8% on average, according to SNCF Voyageurs. An increase lower than inflation over the same period, and above all, lower than the increase in the price of the plane (+ 55%) or fuel (+ 25 to 30%), insists the director of TGV Intercités, Alain Krakovitch .
Furthermore, as the SNCF regularly insists, high speed does not receive any public subsidy and is required to make a profit to finance its investments. Another argument put forward: if you anticipate your purchase sufficiently, you can have access to affordable prices.
“The price gap between Ouigo and TGV Inoui is narrowing”
SNCF Voyageurs also highlights its low-cost Ouigo offer, but the price of which has increased significantly in recent years. According to ART, in 2023 alone, the prices of this offer have increased by 10%.
“The price gap between Ouigo and TGV Inoui is narrowing from year to year,” notes the National Federation of Transport User Associations (FNAUT). According to her, “the average price per Ouigo passenger increased from 27.60 euros in 2019 to 34.20 in 2023, an increase of 24%”. When booking a few days before departure, choosing Ouigo no longer even has any interest in terms of price compared to Inoui, says FNAUT.
“Are there mostly CSP+ in TGVs? The answer is yes,” says Patricia Pérennes, transport economist at Trans-Missions, without hesitation. “Mobility has become a value in society and it is a learning process, not everyone has the same ease of movement,” she notes.
-She cites the example of a supermarket cashier, who often works in the region where she comes from, and is unlikely to make professional trips, unlike an executive. The exclusion of the working classes from high-speed travel is therefore not only due to price, according to her. She says she is skeptical of the idea of lowering the cost of tickets.
The competition solution
“An overall reduction in TGV fares would amount to taking taxes from everyone to finance the travel of the richest”, since the popular categories do not have a second home nor the means to pay for a hotel for a week -end, assures Patricia Pérennes.
In 2024, the online sales company Trainline recorded a sharp increase in demand for the south of France (Nice, Cannes, Avignon) and for international connections, mainly Spain, illustrating the dynamism of leisure destinations.
For Patricia Pérennes, it would be more judicious to bring up to date the “annual leave ticket”, created in 1936, and which offers anyone working the right to a 25% reduction on one round trip per year. A little-known measure, but difficult to assert with the SNCF, with a form to be completed by your employer and above all, a reduction which applies to the maximum price of the ticket, therefore of little interest.
Alain Krakovitch praises the arrival of competition as a solution to lower prices, as on the Paris-Lyon route, where Trenitalia operates a connection. Patricia Pérennes agrees and even envisages a price reduction of 20% to 30% where competition will establish itself. “On the other hand, you should not live in Saverne or Bar-le-Duc,” she warns, anticipating a reduction in prices only on the profitable SNCF lines, therefore attractive for competition, i.e. around a third of the high-speed lines. speed.
