Radical changes to the operations management and customer relations activities for SNCF’s regional passenger services were announced by General Manager, TER, Frank Lacroix on February 14.

Providing an update on the CAP TER 2020 transformation strategy launched at the end of 2016, Lacroix said the first two years had focused on cost control while looking to improve punctuality and reverse a drop in patronage, but it was now time to plan for growth.

Over the past two years, he said performance had improved, with the number of late-running trains cut steadily despite 36 days of strikes last year. On-time arrivals improved to 90·4% in 2017 and 92·7% in January 2019. This had been matched by ‘the first significant increase in traffic since 2017’, with TER ridership up by an average of 4·8% across all regions.

With last year’s railway reform legislation providing for the competitive tendering of regional operating contracts from 2023, Lacroix said nine of the 11 regions had renewed their operating agreement with SNCF, under which the national railway has committed to delivering improvements in quality of service and cost control. It has also committed to supporting regional efforts to attract more passengers onto TER services, setting a target of increasing daily ridership by 20% between now and 2025. This would represent a further 200 000 passengers/day.

In order to streamline its operations, Lacroix said SNCF would restructure its TER activities into three ‘products’, tailored to meet ‘the specific need for mobility in the regions and a different mode of railway production’: