MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

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society
�
limited physical space, is a headache:
“One of our problems today with the Eurostar
is that we can receive two Eurostars an hour
at Paris-Nord, when the line has capacity
for three trains an hour…”
… managed
in a compartmented manner
Although the twenty-fi rst century station
houses twentieth century transport services,
its political role in structuring the territory
and society, has not changed. The station
connects several worlds. Restructuring
a French station is a particularly diffi cult task
as authority has been divided up by
the Loi d’orientation des transports intérieurs.
A single station is therefore answerable to:
different transport authorities: the SNCF
for mainlines, the region for regional transport,
the department for departmental lines
and the urban area or communauté
de communes for local lines;
different owners: the RFF*, the SNCF,
the city authority for the station square,
state departments (Facilities, Defense, etc.)
for the area behind the station;
different operators: transporters (rail
transport or not, collective or not), retailers…
Fabienne Keller underlines how diffi cult
this partitioning makes project management:
“The modernisation of the TGV station
at Le Mans, for example, despite its relative
simplicity, required 48 property changes!
These are all factors liable to slow
down projects. Faced by this legal division,
the solution is to create a structure
– public institution, mixed enterprise, etc. –
able to mutualise properties, distribute
functions in an optimum manner and give
each entity a claw-back provision. This system
permits legal reunifi cation of the area.”
For this purpose, the SNCF, the regions and
local actors would like to strengthen their ties.
Bringing all the actors together to render
projects more fl exible is a major challenge
because stations, for several reasons,
are a particular priority for rail investment:
fi rst, they are sometimes wasteland, then,
their number of users is likely to grow fourfold
over the next twenty years, as a result
* RFF: national rail infrastructure operator.
of the growth in regional transport under
a policy of sustainable development.
Lastly, as part of the same philosophy,
station development permits urban planning
for an entire surrounding district. “These types
of development projects cost a lot,” agrees
Fabienne Keller, “and concern not only
the transport authorities, but all the actors
who create the city. Since my report
to the Prime Minister, I am regularly
approached to take part in symposiums or
by city authorities seeking the most effi cient
manner to get different actors to work
together on these projects. I also have fairly
frequent contact with economic stakeholders,
who are of interest for three reasons:
they provide fi nance for co-fi nancing, generate
jobs and create activities.”
This division of responsibility also leads
to a division of pricing for services provided.
With the exception of the Ile-de-France,
managed by a single authority concerned
with maintaining integrated pricing, the law
separating organisations and dividing up
operators has permitted the proliferation of
different pricing systems and different pricing
offers, preventing the traveller from buying
a ticket valid for their entire journey, from end
to end. “Paradoxically, passengers are less
well treated than their luggage, which is
collected at their homes and transported
to the point of destination for a single price!”
the Senator remarks ironically.
A new ‘signposting language’
In the complex world of the great station, how
can the time spent by the customer be made
as pleasant as possible? Gares & Connexions
are developing a range of solutions. First,
those that Sophie Boissard calls the ‘basics’,
intended to create a calm atmosphere
in the station. This includes the building’s
architectural quality and the quality of its
lighting, which should as often as possible
be natural lighting, and its acoustic ambiance:
“French stations are still too noisy compared
with those in Germany or Switzerland, where
there are practically no voice announcements
anymore,” she observes. The fi eld of
investigation also covers thermal comfort,