The vice-president of the region in charge of transport was the guest of France Bleu Azur at 7:45 this Friday morning. It confirms that further increases are possible in TER prices, if inflation continues.
When you are vice-president in charge of transport and you increase the price of tickets, is this not an admission of failure, that of maintaining a public service at a constant price?
No not at all. It’s not a failure. For seven years, there had been no increase in prices on regional networks, both TER and regional express lines. During this period, we had an increase in our production costs of more than nine percent. And so, we are doing good management by limiting these increases as much as possible since they are simply 2.82% on single titles and 4.55% on subscriptions. You see very limited compared to what we undergo.
That’s still an extra sum for Riviera travellers. Do you understand their misunderstanding?
I hear that obviously, raises are never pleasant. Now we are in charge of a public service. A public service must be balanced. I remind you that the resources from pricing represent barely 25% of revenue. This is the region’s first budget. It is 600 million euros which are devoted to transport and therefore we are doing good management by limiting these increases as much as possible.
You tell us that there will be no new increases?
The increases were recorded on April 1. Now we are watching, and we are seeing how the situation is developing. There we made arrangements for the current year. Now let’s see how prices rise. And I remind you that transport is very much subject both to energy prices and also to the prices of all costs which are currently rising due to inflation.
Are there more travelers than before with rising fuel prices?
Unquestionably, we have new Azurians. We generally work on half-yearly data. I think we will have specific elements at the end of this semester. But undeniably, the number of users is progressing.
The region plans to abolish the very practical discount card, especially for young people, for example. Why?
We are completely overhauling the pricing, we want it to be simpler, more readable and we are really emphasizing solidarity pricing. We got involved in July 2021. We are almost at the end of the consultation cycle. Things will be presented at the end of this semester, precisely.
Additional help?
For example, we are going to set up a solidarity price which will go according to the family quotient up to 90% reduction on the unit price and on subscriptions. So we are in a process that is in a process of equity. There will be more support. For example, we are going to accompany more groups that work and travel together. We are going to support more those who have chosen telework.
Regarding the Pignes train in danger, the CGT tells us. The Region has decided to replace the Annot-Digne les Bains section with a coach. Do you confirm?
It is completely false. We are carrying out work on the tunnel which had suffered damage. That takes time. We continue to invest across the board. For us, the line, it starts from Nice and goes to Digne.
And you didn’t remove trains 15 and 16 from the line two years ago either?
Every year we have a transport plan which adds lines and removes them.
Who takes it away?
Who adds and who takes away. I would also like to emphasize the “who adds to it”. Sometimes we find that there is far too little attendance and I remind you that it is a concern for optimization, we draw up a transport plan. Every day, we have more than 120,000 to 150,000 people outside of school who use our networks. So it may be, and this is the case in this case, that on routes that were notoriously uncrowded, we have made adaptations. Overall, our offer is progressing, the number of services that we make available to all the citizens of the region is increasing and I would not like the CGT to say on an example: there is a threat on the line, we are in the process of to favor one over the other. No, that’s not how it happens at all.