pricing

Fees are due for payment by railway companies (the incumbent operator SNCF and any new railway company accessing the network) for all of their traffic.

Applicants authorised to order slots from Réseau Ferré de France (carriers, autonomous ports, transport organisation authorities, etc.) also pay associated fees.

This pricing system forms part of the European and French regulatory network, and in particular the 1997 act under which Réseau Ferré de France was created.

For all services, unit prices are defined for each annual service timetable, which begins the day after the second Saturday in December.

The list of fees is comprised of the list for minimal services, the list for access to equipment, and additional and related services.
 

The list of fees for minimal services is established by an inter-ministerial decree at the proposal of Réseau Ferré de France. Following the creation of the Railway Activities Regulatory Authority (ARAF), the pricing proposed by RFF needs to be given the ARAF’s approval.

These fees are broken down into three different components:

The access fee is a set amount that is only applied to government-regulated activities, or regional passenger trains (regional express trains and Transilien)
The reservation fee is calculated based on kilometres reserved, depending on the type of line and the time of travel. This fee may be altered for passenger trains on high-speed lines depending on the number of seats available, the origin and destination and, for freight trains, the length of the slot and the average speed of the slot, excluding stops, requested by the slot applicant. As such, Réseau Ferré de France charges higher prices in the most popular areas and at the most popular times.
The circulation fee is calculated based on kilometres covered depending on the type of train and the type of line. Not all slot reservations necessarily result in a train running on that slot. Strikes, unforeseen last-minute complications and the failure to obtain freight contracts are some of the main reasons for discrepancies between reserved kilometres and kilometres actually covered.

This new structure, as well as the associated unit lists, applied beginning with the 2010 service timetable - the first year in which pricing reforms were introduced - are the result of work by a delegate of the General Inspectorate of Finances at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (IGF-CGPC), published in July 2007, and government decisions.

In 2010, each of these three fees accounted for one third of the total fees received by RFF (around €4.5 billion).

The reservation fee, charged for requests for infrastructure usage times (= slots), is based on a segmentation of the network into 1,200 elementary sectors grouped by pricing category according to the type of line (high-speed lines, suburban lines, intercity lines and others).
The circulation fee varies depending on the railway activities concerned.
The access fee, meanwhile, is a fixed amount for a given service timetable. It is paid by the STIF (Greater Paris Transport Authority) for Transilien activity and by the government for regional express train activity in other regions.

The chosen principles state that:

Variable costs for operation and maintenance are covered by the circulation fee and the reservation fee in the specific case of freight.
All or part of capital costs are covered by the reservation fee.
Fixed costs are covered by an access fee for regional passenger trains (regional express trains and Transilien) and included in the reservation fee for passenger high-speed activities subject to competition.
 

Réseau Ferré de France offers other services, such as access to equipment and the provision of various services, for which specific fees are charged. The list established for these services is the sole responsibility of the board of directors of Réseau Ferré de France.
 

Like any other network manager, the fees that we receive go towards financing expenses, particularly those incurred in the course of maintaining, renovating and managing the network, as well as in development. They enable demand to be more effectively guided in order to ensure better use of the circulation capacity offered and provide access to the network on a non-discriminatory and transparent basis.
Réseau Ferré de France covers more than two thirds of its costs thanks to these infrastructure fees and is gradually moving towards improved coverage of costs.