Thursday, October 6, 2016

The PACA region opens its regional trains in the competition, Le Figaro

Christian Estrosi, the president of the region, has announced that it has broken “all the negotiations with the SNCF for the renewal of an agreement that had been signed ten”. The region disagrees with the estimate of 291 million euros, established by the SNCF.

The Paca region has decided to break off the negotiations with the SNCF for the renewal of the agreement governing the network of regional express transportation, and accelerate the opening up to competition, announced on Wednesday the chairman of the area Christian Estrosi. “I break all the negotiations with the SNCF for the renewal of an agreement that had been signed ten years ago and who saw his term come next December”, he stated during a press conference. “I urge the acceleration of the opening up to competition as early as 2019″, and “even before that, if the State allows it,” continued the president of the region, saying it was a “first in France” and that he wanted to make Paca a “pilot region” in the matter.

“We are working on the creation of a european grouping of territorial cooperation involving at least Monaco and Liguria” in Italy, he declared, mentioning a possible collaboration with the Italian company Thello, which compete already the SNCF by providing rail links between France and Italy.

“The train is not always the most appropriate, alternative tenders are to study”, said Christian Estrosi, citing the “cars ” regional” and the “bus with high level of service.” The president of the region has also said it was studying the possibility of a management in-house to organize some of the lines of rail transportation, “on the model of the chemins de fer de Provence” to counteract “the monopoly of the SNCF”. The region disagrees with the estimate of 291 million euros, established by the SNCF for the current year, estimating that there were “36 million too many” saw “86 trains on strike, cancelled, or failed driver” since last January, according to Christian Estrosi, who states having communicated this decision on Monday, the president of the SNCF Guillaume Pepy. “On the 3rd of November we will submit to the elected representatives (from the region) a budget unilateral for the estimate of 2016″,-he said, while ensuring that the transport would continue to be insured. The region “will not pay what it should be,” he assured.

The Paca and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes had already announced in early September their intention to impose penalties on the SNCF due to deletions of TER by lack of drivers, a problem recognized by the railway company who had said they wanted to “resolve this situation by the end of the year.” The boss of the SNCF, guillaume pepy, had admitted in march to a “forecast error”, the number of retirements and promised the recruitment of 1,000 new drivers in 2016.

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