REPORTING. With “Omnéo”, Transdev will become the first competitor of SNCF in France to operate a TER line

The first trainsets manufactured by Alstom and operated by Transdev to compete with SNCF should run between Marseille and Nice from June 29, 2025. A latest generation train, owned by the PACA region, for twice as many daily round trips .

It was called “Omnéo” but belongs to the Régio2N family of models, already marketed by Alstom. A symbolic step was taken on Thursday November 23 by Transdev, which will become the first competitor of the SNCF in France to operate a TER line. The operator, majority owned by Caisse des Dépôts, has in fact unveiled the first train set to operate between Marseille and Nice from June 29, 2025.

The train is manufactured at the Alstom Crespin site, near Valenciennes. It is made up of eight cars, on one or two levels, with 350 seats, accessible without steps from the platform, equipped with sockets and wifi on board, and as efficient as it is economical, swears Olivier Delecroix, head of sales. ‘Alstom in France. “This train is already adapted to future infrastructures, with for example the capacity to go at 200 km/h, but at the same time we have a whole energy optimization system. This means that the energy expenditure per passenger is significantly less compared to previous generations, beyond 20%”he explains.

Twice as many daily round trips for the same price

The PACA region, more than a third of whose budget is devoted to transport, will own the 16 new trains, in circulation on the Marseille-Toulon-Nice line. It is up to Transdev to make the best use of them, during the ten years of its operating contract.

“The challenge for us is to go from 3.5 million travelers to 5.5 million.”

Renaud Muselier, president of the PACA region

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Renaud Muselier, the president of the regional council, finds the investment justified. “If we only talk about the trains, we’re still talking about 250 million euros. It’s not nothing but then we’re looking at ten years”he specifies.

Because Transdev is committed to ensuring 15 daily round trips, double what SNCF currently offers, for a comparable price and with a regularity rate of 97%. This allowed it to win the call for tenders launched by the region at the end of 2021, when no less than nine operators had expressed their interest.

A more flexible work organization

Transdev draws on its experience abroad, particularly in Germany, where it operates numerous regional train lines. With a work organization intended to be more flexible than that of the SNCF, as explained by its CEO Thierry Mallet. “In the Transdev organization our drivers can drive the trains to the depot. The maintenance teams also very often have the authorization to drive trains if necessary on the network (…) This is what we did in Germany, which allowed us to gain in efficiency, and this is what we also want to do in Francehe said. We have no barrier between the maintenance teams and the operations teams.”

The fact remains that only around thirty SNCF railway workers working in the PACA region are candidates for transfer within Transdev. The operator will therefore have to recruit and train 150 additional employees to ensure the operation of the Marseille-Nice line as well as the maintenance of Omnéo trains, in a maintenance center which should open at the end of 2024, near Nice station. .