Paris and its region have their RER, Rouen could well have its SEM ! The idea is in any case launched and under study as in about twenty other metropolitan areas in France. The State has in fact asked the SNCF and the local authorities to work on these Metropolitan express services to try to unclog the roads and find alternatives to the car in increasingly saturated urban areas.
An SEM in three lines
In the metropolis of Rouen, the feasibility study was validated in November 2021 and entrusted to SNCF Réseau, but three local railway defense associations (SOS stations, the Normandy railway vigilance committee and the SNCF Sotteville triage defense committee ) seized the opportunity to define themselves an SEM project with three lines.
- SEM A: Yvetot < - > Saint-Aubin-lès-Elbeuf via Rouen-Right bank
- SEM B: Clères < - > Serqueux via Rouen-Right bank
- SEM C: Rouen-Saint-Sever < - > Elbeuf-Ville
Line A could be put into service very quickly, according to Jean-Louis Dalibert, the president of the SOS stations association, since he “would suffice to add trains. The line already exists. For it to become a SEM, it just takes the timing” to know one train every 30 minutes during peak hours and one train every hour during off-peak hours.
It would also need a tariff integration. In other words, the train ticket is the same as the ticket for other modes of transport in the metropolis: bus and metro.
Line B would also use the existing network but would require some work on the tracks, in particular electrification between Malaunay and Clères. The idea of the collective would also be to reopen Darnétal station and create a stopover in Isneauville.
Line C would be the most complex and heavy in infrastructure investment because it would rely on the Saint-Sever station, currently under construction and not yet operational. It would also be necessary to renovate the tracks up to Elbeuf-Ville.
An ecological and economical project
For these associations, this SEM project is the future. These lines overlap exactly the most saturated routes on the roads of the metropolis. “If it is well coupled with other modes of transport, this could make motorists switch to the train“says Jean-Louis Dalibert and relieve traffic congestion.
According to their estimates, this switch to rail could even reduce CO2 emissions by 60,000 tonnes per year in metropolitan France.