A little over a year after Emmanuel Macron’s declaration announcing his desire to create RERs “in ten French metropolises”, the law allowing the development of these new services must be definitively adopted on Monday by the Senate. Rather consensual, the text should be voted on by a large majority of senators. It provides a legal framework for these major “regional metropolitan express services” (SERM) projects, the equivalent of the RER in Île-de-France.
The law provides in particular to expand the missions of the Société du Grand Paris, renamed Société des grands Projets, to put these SERMs on track in around ten major metropolises, within 10 years. SGP will be the prime contractor for the construction of new infrastructure or railway lines, while SNCF Réseau will retain its role of improving and maintaining the existing network.
But it is about offering more than just an improved rail service, with trains running every 10 to 15 minutes, and radial connections crossing major metropolises. These SERMs must combine express cars, cycle networks, carpooling, to encourage car-free mobility in all its forms around major French cities.
Also read: Why the metropolitan RERs are moving slowly
The Minister for Transport Clément Beaune made this project one of the priorities of his ministry and a pillar of the future plan for transport in February. Elisabeth Borne then promised 100 billion euros for transport by 2040. For the moment, the government has promised an initial envelope of 767 million euros to help start the projects, broken down within the framework of plan contracts State region (CPER), currently being signed.
The Nantes SERM, for example, has already been allocated 101 million euros by 2027 and “will be one of the first to see the light of day in France”, promised the government and the Pays de la Loire region during the signing of the CPER in mid-November. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, 162 million euros will be released to finance preliminary studies and the first works on rail services to Aix-Marseille, Toulon, Nice and the Avignon metropolitan area. Elsewhere, such as in Strasbourg, the project is already well advanced, but it experienced setbacks at its launch due not to the infrastructure, but to equipment and personnel problems according to SNCF Réseau.
In Bordeaux “without doubt (the) most advanced project in France, with that of Lille”, according to Clément Beaune, the construction site has started and must gradually ramp up to be completed in 2030. Some SERMs, however, are not expected before 2035 as in Aix-Marseille or Grenoble, given the scale of the necessary work. The sums required to complete these projects are colossal. The total cost of the Metropolitan RERs is estimated at between 15 and 20 billion euros by the Infrastructure Orientation Council.
“The economic and financial model of SERMs remains the great unknown,” recalled Senator Philippe Tabarot (Les Républicains) during the examination of the law in October. “The State will be there, the communities will have to be there too,” Clément Beaune replied. A national conference on financing must be held in the Senate by June 30.