Will regional business travellers one day have to choose between an SNCF train or... another TGV? This is the - barely caricatured - proposal put forward earlier this week by François Ruffin (LFI) and Delphine Batho (Ecologie) during discussions on the Mobility Orientation Act (LOM). The aim would be to reduce the climate impact of air transport, which has a carbon footprint at least 60% greater than that of rail on short journeys.
It may seem an attractive proposition. We know that on very short journeys, the aeroplane is no match for three-hour journeys by car. TGV. Beyond that point, air travel is still very attractive. By doing away with air services where trains take five hours, only services to Nice (5h45 for the fastest journey), Perpignan and Corsica would escape the axe. All in all, the two MPs are talking about the more than 70 daily flights cancelled...
The TGV effect on domestic traffic has already been measured in the past. Paris-Strasbourg eliminated half of the Alsace hub's traffic, bringing total passenger numbers down from 2.5 million before the arrival of the high-speed train to 1.3 million last year. The line Paris-Lyon dropped from 1.5 million passengers to just under 640,000 last year. But Paris-Lyon proves that despite the TGV, which puts the two cities within two hours of each other, there are still customers for air travel. In fact, air traffic between the two cities has hardly changed at all. In 2003, for example, Paris-Lyon generated 630,000 passengers...
In fact, the reasoning of the two MPs is simplistic because it does not take into account the economic reality of the aircraft. On domestic routes, many passengers are actually in connections on long-haul flights or destinations with little or no direct flight service. Doing away with domestic feeder flights could actually jeopardise the role as an international hub at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. According to Aéroports de Paris statistics, nearlya third of passengers are in fact being transferred.
The disappearance of domestic flights - even if they could eventually be replaced by direct TGV services to CDG - should nevertheless have a negative effect, probably reducing connecting traffic by at least five points.
The SNCF, ADP and the airlines need to work on a seamless transfer system, offering the same level of protection as for flight-to-flight connections... Because the anxiety of having to transfer from one mode of transport to another is real. In fact, it encourages passengers not to leave the airport for their connections, as they feel that they have more control over the environment in which they are travelling.
Passengers in the regions will therefore have to turn instead to other hubs in the rest of Europe to reach their final destination. Airport authorities in Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Madrid and Munich are probably already rubbing their hands...
