Hauts-de-France tenders regional services
FRANCE: Following a year of consultation over the competitive tendering of up to 10 groups of local rail services, the Hauts-de-France regional council formally invited expressions of interest on July 30 for two nine-year public service contracts to operate routes in Nord-Pas de Calais and Picardie from July 7 2024.
One contract, valued at €155m, covers the regional lines radiating from Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise to Étaples, Béthune and Arras, which together amount to an estimated 600 000 train-km per year. The other, valued at €228m, covers the Beauvais – Paris Nord route which carries a more intensive commuter service, requiring the operation of 900 000 train-km per year.
Both packages include provision for the operation of buses to complement or replace the trains; in the case of the Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise ‘star’, this includes regular bus services on the route to Béthune. The operating concessionaires will have to liaise with national infrastructure manager SNCF Réseau over path allocation, access to stations and other interfaces.
In both cases, Hauts-de-France will make the rolling stock available; recent builds have been procured by SNCF to regional specifications and at the region’s expense. Financial support may be provided if it is felt appropriate to invest in additional stock. Servicing and maintenance would become the responsibility of the operator. Both tenders include an option covering the construction of local maintenance facilities to be exercised at the region’s discretion. Such facilities would remain the property of the region and be leased to the operators.
The concessionaires would be responsible for marketing, passenger information and fare collection, including the selling and checking of tickets, in line with a fares policy set by the region. They would be expected to participate in initiatives to develop greater multimodality in local public transport.
The Saint-Pol package includes further options covering the maintenance of infrastructure and stations, which may be exercised following an express decision of the Regional Council. This would allow for any future transfer of responsibility for selected local lines to regional control in the light of experience with the schemes now being piloted in Grand Est.
In the case of the Beauvais – Paris route, candidates are invited to submit a second offer outlining options for reducing the end-to-end journey time for selected services to under 1 h, as well as their standard bid.
Both contracts are expected to run for 126 months, allowing 18 months for mobilisation ahead of the start of operations. This would provide time for preparations including the transfer of staff and the handing over of assets. Staff transfers would be in line with French legislation on conditions of employment. An extra six months would be added to the mobilisation period in the event that the option to develop a maintenance depot is exercised, although the start date for operations would remain July 7 2024.
Initial offers are required by October 21, after which an invitation to tender will be issued to shortlisted applicants, which could include individual companies or consortia providing that they hold the necessary operating licence and safety certification. The region would need to select its preferred bidder and finalise the contracts by mid-2022 to allow for a two-year mobilisation.
