MOROCCO IS ACCELERATING! feature - Alstom

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the customer will feel that they are benefi tting
from a service with real added value.
Another level of improvement for customer
comfort is the ‘additional basics’.
The categories of passengers that have
grown fastest in the last ten years are
business travellers and commuters (people
working on two sites, freelance professionals,
individuals with a partner in another city…).
A reality around which changes in service
offers need to be built, starting with
“ French stations are still
too noisy compared
with those in Germany
or Switzerland.”
the installation in stations of business centres
similar to hotel offi ce facilities, where
it is possible to reserve a room or
photocopying services to save a customer
having to search for this service. Medical
services enable time spent waiting in a station
to be used to establish a blood analysis, for
instance; public services such as post offi ces,
city hall or administrative services’ annexes;
personal services such as shoeshine,
heel bars, key cutting while you wait and
hairdressing are all services that can
optimise time spent by travellers in stations.
“But anyway, the idea is not to build
conventional shopping centres in stations,”
emphasises Sophie Boissard, “stations are
specifi c places because of their transport
and urban functions. We need to make
the most of these specifi c characteristics,
as the Swiss have succeeded in doing.”
With between 4 and 5 billion euros,
the Gares & Connexions investment
programme for the next ten years aims
to make a hundred priority sites,
not only integrated transport hubs but
also lively shopping areas.
An agora concept
for the future
The fi nal objective? A dream station,
where machinery – rails, depots, storage
sites, and so on – would be underground,
invisible to the city and its surroundings.
A station that would appear freed of these
areas, its visible parts resembling an
animated agora with a wide choice
of services. This task is both an exciting
and a diffi cult one, as the Managing
Director of Gares & Connexions admits:
“Built between the two World Wars, a station
in the Ile-de-France typically has platforms
that are too short, insuffi cient furniture and
car parking in front that prevents direct
access for people on foot. This is so far from
what we are aiming for, that we must change
everything and be ambitious, going much
further than just a coat of paint and installing
a newspaper kiosk.” Despite there still being
a long way to go, Fabienne Keller thinks
some Paris stations are already getting it right,
such as the renovated Gare de Paris-Est:
“I fi nd that there is a feeling of space and
the different areas have really been optimised.
I think that the ideal thing would be to create
completely empty areas in stations, as is done
in Switzerland, to hold exhibitions or concerts
and bring the station to life by for instance
creating artistic or commercial events.”
In the great station of the future, the concept
of the agora is making progress, as is testifi ed
by the international projects with which
Gares & Connexions is associated,
from Turin to Shanghai, and including stations
in Russia, Morocco, India or Vietnam.
Jean-Christophe Hédouin