A. The saturation of the Parisian node
The French rail network, as it is known, for historical,
geographical and economic reasons is centered on Paris (star of Legrand), just
like his road and air counterparts.
The Paris area became for any means of transport, the passage
obliged for the goods and the travellers. It is a true hinged plate by which
forwards almost all the exchanges.
This is why the Paris area became for the railroad as for the
road, increasingly encumbered, the increase in passenger traffics and goods
evolving/moving more quickly than the offer of transport.
At the railway level, the trains, goods in particular, borrow to
reach the Parisian node or to forward there a railway line normally reserved
for freight circumventing the Parisian pole through the outskirts of the city
(the Large Belt) serving centers of sorting, building sites of transshipment
(transport combined rail/road) and the large national railway axes towards the
principal French and foreign regional poles economic.
However, the concentration and the increase in the traffic
freight on the Parisian node caused a relative saturation of the Large Belt
which cannot answer any more effectively at the request of transport. Important
delays, long moments of waiting intervene unceasingly. When one knows the
importance of the times of routing and the respect of the latter for the
conveyer with respect to the charger, one understands easily that the
saturation of the Large Belt poses many problems. The measurement of the
railway congestion is directly related to the concept of quality of service
felt by the customers. The respect of the schedules constitutes the essential
element of quality of service felt by the customers. The respect of the
schedules translates the reliability into exploitation of the schedules of the
trains designed by the owner and is concretized by an index of regularity. The
railway phenomenon of congestion is also characterized by the difficulty (even
impossibility) of answering at the request of transport : for example,
impossibility of tracing furrows allowing the trains arriving in the
agglomerations at the schedules that the market requires it, or the existence
low block speeds in spite of materials adapted to high dash speeds.
The railway exploitation is also by unstable and fragile nature,
taking into account the absence of deviations in the event of incidents.
Many traffics are concentrated on the most powerful lines which
are the electrified lines, at high authorized speed and easy profile, with a
strong frequentation.
This report explains also the concentration of the traffic
North-South freight on the large Belt.
The investments of capacity of these last years moreover little
touched the Large Crown of Paris and little the relations freight whereas the
traffics increased (+2% per annum).
The congestion of the Large Belt threatens.
To the saturation of the infrastructure by the goods traffic is
added the exponential increase in the passenger traffic of suburbs to suburbs
which are cruelly lacking in Paris area. Transport inter suburbs of travellers
will be reopened by junction of radial between them via certain branches of the
RER or by loan of the Large Belt.
In Paris area, freight is the poor relation of the rail-bound
transport who circulates at the hours that arrange the owner, i.e. those where
there is no passenger traffic. Those will thus take the step on the goods
traffics.
The problem is not to however make the Large Belt in itself more
powerful, since to arrive there, it is necessary to approach the Paris area.
However, located in urban zone, where space misses cruelly, this line can be
improved only at one astronomical cost, it will be necessary to take into
account the opposition of the residents which will certainly not accept the
increase in the harmful effects in their environment. It is obvious that the
cost per kilometer will be prohibitory.
On the general need to increase the frequencies and in order to
regulate increasingly many conflicts of circulation without Pharaonic
investments, a simple conclusion is essential : it is necessary to
eliminate from the Paris area all the traffic which does not take place to be
namely the through traffic freight.
The shoed network of France is rich many by-passs making it
possible to sail round Paris at a distance from 150 to 200 km. These lines,
traced well and with double track ensured an important service, especially in
the field of freight, the time of the steam traction. Their role decreased in
the last decades because of the concentration of the traffic operated on the
arteries electrified (for a greater productivity : minimal policy of
equipment of the SNCF which caused the folding back on some lines of all the
kinds of traffic), so much so that they fell into a quasi-lapse of memory. But
they exist and represent a beautiful capital with a very important potential.
The solution would be then to defer traffics on these famous by-passs under
used after modernization and electrification. The idea would be thus to create
a great Paris by-pass (GCP) which would be capable to solve a great number of
problems that the routing of freight meets and would make it possible at the
same time to give itself the means thanks to an effective infrastructure of
conquering markets.
B. Route and evaluation of the project
The road of the harbor traffics towards the east thus concerns
the rail. However, at a rate of nearly 550000 containers EVP entrusted to iron
by 2010 (against 160.000 currently), the service road known as current goes
right to saturation. It is envisaged since 2002. In all logic, the project Port
2000 was initially subjected to maritime choices. Very quickly, the glances
turned to the interior, insofar as the most powerful ports are generally those
where the goods remain the least longest.
The relevance of the railway offer is not measured with the ell
of the only quantity. One needs for it also reliability, flexibility,
competitiveness. In this respect, the optimum is not reached. Question
infrastructure, the in-depth service road of the Le Havre-native back-countries
ridges on the Paris by-pass, where the traffics enter in conflict, one saw it
inter alia, with the traffics suburbs of the Paris area. Exploitation question,
the Native of Le Havre is also petitioning.
If, in the wake of Port 2000, the modal share of iron must pass
to 20% then 25, it is necessary that the railway offer follows. The Paris area
is not enough to provide the minimal percentage of limp justifying the stopover
of a very large PC : that is to say 15% in general of a ship charging 6000
limp for example. To draw from other large consumption and coalfields is
consequently a requirement.
State of the infrastructure
Great railway skirting begins in Motteville on the axis Le
Havre/Paris, to approximately 60 km in the east of the large Norman port. This
junction starts the beginning of a small section with single track, not
electrified and used for the local service road. Long of a few tens of
kilometers, it joined always more in the east the axis Rouen/Amiens modernized
and electrified in 1984 in quality of route (a) with a component freight
marked. This axis makes it possible to join the northern axis Paris/with large
gauge towards the Channel tunnel, the Lilloise agglomeration and the old
Franco-Belgian axis for Metz. L '' route of the GCP leaves Amiens for a
directed line full is towards Lorraine. The line
Amiens-Tergnier-Laon-Rheims-Trawl-nets out of champagne is a line with double
not electrified track requiring work of modernization. It was about a line with
double track traced well without structure important to put at the gauge (not
tunnels) and of which all the nodes are already under overhead lines (Tergnier
and Rheims). In addition and within the preceding framework besides, no new
sub-station 25KV, nor feeder high voltage of this one would be to envisage. The
existing sub-stations at the point of crossing with the already electrified
lines should be enough after reinforcement if one adopts the formula 25KV with
auto-transformer. And this more especially as an automatic block with long
cantons (spacing of 7/8 mm) should be enough. Rheims/Chalons is besides already
team. It should be noted that on this last section, the section ranging between
the exchanger with the future TGV existing with height of St Hiliaire to the
Temple and Chalons are in any event programmed to be electrified. With this
work, one obtains, at a quite less cost and a higher result, an axis freight
equipped well avoiding Paris and offering interesting use potential by the grid
which it allows with the existing network which would bring the improvement of
the rotation of the increase and field-installed machines in the fluidity and
the regularity of the routings.
There are however the technological innovations awaited in
particular by the port of Le Havre of massification of pre and post-routings
which impose costs of installation much higher and many problems of adaptation.
It is then all the route which will have to undergo work. Line dedicated to
freight, the axis could be authorized with a weight with the axle of 22,5 tons,
even 25 tons from here at a few years and where of the trains up to 1500 even
2000 meters could circulate, but that is not simple on the technical level to
make roll of the two kilometers long trains.
The line, even if it is not electrified yet, is able to support,
with a reinforcement on the ground, long trains while ensuring a good average,
i.e. approximately 50 km/h of the departure on arrival. That supposes initially
a fine study on the optimization of the furrows and the increase in the
capacity (quartering with automatic blocks), essential with the crossing of all
the radial lines on Paris. But there are also the trains which require in this
case an adapted brake which was not developed yet (the study on the long trains
was not carried out yet). Another problem, that of side and the garage tracks
of 750 meters which do not suffice obviously for trains twice longer.
The section Motteville-Montérolier Buchy east
can be the starting point of the GCP
Connected up on the one hand in Motteville on the axis Le
Havre/Paris, to 60 km downstream from the Harbor, and on the other hand to
Montérolier, 90 km in the south of Amiens on the axis Amiens-Rouen, the
Motteville section/Montérolier is today an element of infrastructure
primarily used for the local service road. It makes nevertheless feasible a
direct connection of the part swallows the Low Seine, with the networks north
and is country, avoiding the passage by the station of Rouen and the junction
of Darnétal, route very much used currently. This line represents a
major advantage to eliminate the conflicts from circulation of Rouen, for
circulations of or towards Amiens. However, the very marginal use of this
section by the plans of national transport operations of the SNCF, is explained
by the fact why its infrastructure is not electrified, nor homogeneous with the
arteries which it is supposed to connect. Its characteristics (not electrified
single track with telephone quartering, at speed limited to 70km/h reduced to
40 when the load with the axle reaches 22,5 tons) do not make it possible to
ensure a flow of circulations at a level of flexibility and effectiveness
compatible with that of the whole of the device used.
Today, the question of the restoration of this line is of
topicality because it would make it possible to offer to harbor freight native
of Le Havre, the access to a vector of distribution with the reception of
technological innovations which would hoist the railway routing on a level of
performance compatible with the ambitions of development announced by the
harbor site itself.
The section thus offers a direct connection with Amiens and
an advisability of sailing round the Island of France in direction of the east
and south-east of France but also towards the Central and Eastern Europe. The
section would contribute to ensure the railway competitiveness of the Norman
port in the European hinterland. And the Amiens route, Tergnier, Chalons out of
Champagne can bring a serious alternative to the passage by the Large Belt. In
addition to the considerable short cut at the distance Le Havre/Amiens, the
modernization and the electrification of weak width, which can be carried out
in less than one year, would also make it possible to relieve the node of Rouen
and the axis Le Havre/Paris and to release from the additional furrows.
The area Upper Normandy is ready besides to finance this work
within the framework of the contracts of plan State/Régions whose cost
is estimated at 250 million francs.
Several questions about the credibility of the project arise and
their resolution returns sometimes to the characteristics or aptitudes of the
route, sometimes with its mode of exploitation. Studies were carried out and
define the most relevant types of circulation likely to borrow the route
according to a potential traffic to evaluate on the basis of offer of services
to determine according to different the scénarii from possible
investments, more or less voluntarist as regards public expenditure. According
to performances' sought for the route, on the one hand for the level of the
exploitation, and on the other hand for the level of the tariff competitiveness
of the services offered, it will be advisable to define the levels of required
investments, progressive and justified by the economic profitability of the
project.
Various characteristics of exploitation to be sought must be
examined and their relevance appreciated in the light of their compatibility
with the infrastructure and other natures of circulations on the axis :
· opening of the relation to the trains of compound, the
whole trains even with the heavy trains
· service road by trains shuttles, batteries of trains
· priority of routing conferred on the trains of freight
with respect to the passenger trains whom certain portions of the route
ensuring by places of the service roads périurbaines support (FOR THE
THIRD TIME)
· circulation of long and heavy trains (1500meters)
· called into question of the plan of current transport of
the CNC whose organization rests on centralizing nodal points
· contribution to the clearing of the large railway belt in
Island of France
· facility of circulation of the routes of diversion which
are today difficult to use day like night (closed lines), which requires the
installation of automatic devices of spacing of the trains
In parallel, the treatment of some singular points very
penalizing in the routing of the trains and the release with the B+ gauge to
consider the uses complementary to this route will have to be carried out as
well as a programme of regeneration of the ways in order to gradually record
the speed of the trains of freight with 100 or 120 km/h.
The total volume of these investments is evaluated to 2,2 billion
francs from here 2006.
The results of the studies carried out provide a very precise
analysis and very well defined of all the possible scénarii according to
the forecasts of traffic of the SNCF and investments' of modernization on great
skirting. It would be useless to textually include in this study the results
and the assumptions of various work. It however appears interesting
conclusions :
because of the importance of the investments of infrastructures,
the shoed networks are marked by a great inertia. The profitability of a
railway is all the more strong as the traffic is more intense there, the
marginal cost of circulation weaker than the traffic is higher, the standing
fixed overheads of exploitation being proportionally very important. Because of
the inertia of the shoed networks built using heavy investments, they ask for a
long period of damping, the railroad needs bulky and stable flows. And it is
there that intervene of many reserves because the forecasts of traffic of the
port of Le Havre on the routings appear much more optimistic than those of the
SNCF. Because it should not be forgotten that the profile of the container
activity in Le Havre will be still strongly drawn by the French domestic
market, that the interior railway hinterland of the port is especially in
south-east and south-west. Admittedly the SNCF envisages the increase in the
traffic in source or towards the French ports, but the estimates are lower than
those of the port which, one can include/understand it in the current harbor
competing context, must start to worry about not see the situation
evolving/moving quickly. Indeed, the prospect for the installation of the led
GCP, in the only taking into account of the port native of Le Havre in traffics
freight, the SNCF and RF to perceive a combinative cost/difficult effectiveness
after the authorized investments and the strongly probable increase in tolls.
With the SNCF, one is not against the idea of this line but one n
the other hand claims an awakening of the harbor operators and in particular of
the forwarding agents so that they are linked to set up a new system of
marketing of the containers making it possible to make competitive prices of
fixed price on the shuttles.
In addition, RF and the SNCF regard the axis Le Havre/Paris and
the passage by the large belt as being most powerful. Besides the study on the
GCP wishes the maintenance of the traffic on the radial one of the large belt
which is and will remain, in spite of the delays involving of the prolonged
times, the most powerful route for a great number of destinations.
Fortunately, there exists on this route a juxtaposition of
interests and it is mainly necessary to go to see as regards foreigner to start
again the project. Which are the flows concerned with the GCP ? First of
all those of the axis is/western, in particular the evacuation of the traffic
of the port of Le Havre, placed best on the Atlantic frontage. But there is
also a potential détournable coming from the United Kingdom in direction
from the Central Europe and Italy. The By-pass can indeed be an alternative for
the traffics coming from the ports of the United Kingdom and to thus release
the north-eastern transversal skirting to France the Belgian border, centers
very borrowed which knows worrying problems of congestion. The forecasts of
traffics on the GCP are thus re-examined with the rise especially within the
framework of a co-operation between the national networks (corridor of
freight).
There remains always the problem of the financing. RF made draw
up a report/ratio on different the scénarii from installation of the
By-pass and in forwarded to each DRE areas concerned with the GCP to incite
them to take share with the investment. In a context of important budgetary
restrictions, RF established a text which authorizes the manager of
infrastructure to seek new partners in certain projects. On their side, the
areas are not against the adjustment of this route since they have a service
road, but as for the investment, they become more skeptics and consider, surely
rightly, the rail traffic of transit well not very profitable.
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