There will be better, but the SNCF itself recognizes that we are not yet returning to “the maximum offer”. In a press release published on Friday, the company announces that it is maintaining its reduced transport plan for another week, but that new TER will be put into circulation from November 14 in Hauts-de-France.
38 trains to compensate for 136 deletions
Due to a lack of train drivers (65 according to the SNCF) and in order to ensure “the reliability of the transport offer”, the company had announced that it was going to remove, during the All Saints holidays, 136 trains out of the 1,255 trains that travel the region every day. This downgraded offer will be maintained for “seven more days” in order to “take into account available resources”writes the SNCF.
But new trains are announced: 17 additional trains from November 14, then 21 more from December 12. “The trains put back into circulation have been defined to respond in priority to the lines where the frequentation is the strongest and the most sensitive needs, as requested by the organizing authority, the Hauts-de-France Region”continues the SNCF in its press release.
Xavier Bertrand’s response
17 trains on November 14, 21 from December 12: we are still far from the 136 trains canceled for All Saints’ Day. What did not escape the president of the Region. “You now want to extend this adapted transport plan by reinjecting 38 trains into the network which, according to the SNCF, would improve the situation of users of the Hauts-de-France TER”writing Xavier-Bertrand in a letter addressed to the CEO of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou.
In the same letter, the President of the Region also questions the figures put forward by the SNCF. According to him, between October 28 and November 3, these are more than 180 daily deletions (up to 223 on October 31) which have been listed on the TER Hauts-de-France network. “You will therefore understand that the region is waiting for more guarantees and answers”continues Xavier Bertrand.
“Aware of the need to return to the maximum supply as soon as possiblecontinues the SNCF in its press release, SNCF Voyageurs is strengthening and accelerating its unprecedented recruitment program with 440 new employees at TER Hauts-de-France for 2022. During the first months of 2023, the integration of recruits at the end of their training into the operational teams will make it possible to offer new stages of improvement of the transport offer.”