A TER like no other will make its debut in Toulouse Matabiau station this Saturday morning: the first hybrid regional train in France. It will serve the Occitanie region, the Grand-Est, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the Centre-Val-de-Loire.
Launched in 2018 by SNCF and Alstom, the first hybrid TER is financed by the regions served. On each train, half of the internal combustion engines have been replaced by batteries to store energy.
How it works ?
The system is essentially the same as for hybrid cars, when braking, the batteries are filled and save up to 20% energy. Another innovation: when it passes through built-up areas, the hybrid train can travel over twenty kilometres, without using its engines at all.
“A formula which, in our region, will be interestinganalyzes Jean-Luc Gibelin, vice-president of the Occitanie region in charge of transport. In particular everywhere where there are accelerations and decelerations, since it is in the deceleration that the recovered energy can be transformed into electricity. And so it is particularly suitable for a region like ours.”
The objective is, of course, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas trains, without modifying the stations. After a year of testing, it will normally welcome travelers within a year, in the spring of 2023.