Highways will finance rail: Framework law on transport expected on February 4th

"There is a month of consultation around the text" and "we are aiming [to date] for a presentation to the Council of Ministers on February 4," the minister's office told the press.

The text, already submitted to the Council of State, must also be presented to the National Council for the Evaluation of Standards and to the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), the cabinet detailed during a telephone press briefing.

These timetable details follow the unveiling on Saturday by the transport specialist letter Mobily-Cités of the text of the framework bill.

The law, which the ministry plans to supplement with a programming law, will deal with the financing of highways, railways, public transport and transport organizing authorities, as well as freight transport.

It thus takes up the four main themes addressed in June during the Ambition France Transports transport financing conference, convened by the Bayrou government.

In rail transport, which has become increasingly popular with the public since the Covid-19 epidemic, the average age of infrastructure in Europe, in Germany or Switzerland, "is around 15 years" for the network, the ministry points out.

However, in France, "we're looking at around 25-30 years," notes the consulting firm, which is seeking to "generate additional resources on a sustainable basis" to finance the massive renovation work needed on the network. These needs are estimated at 4 billion euros per year by the Ambition Transport Conference.

The state therefore plans to use part of the revenue from motorway concessions.

He plans to do this by "more significantly regulating the profitability of highways", so that part of the 13 billion in toll revenue collected each year by highway companies is directed towards financing other means of transport.

At the end of the current motorway concession contracts - 90% of which expire between 2031 and 2036 - toll revenues will be "allocated to all modes of transport," the ministry stated.

The amount of revenue thus "earmarked" is estimated at around 2,5 or 3 billion euros per year.

Some 90% of the national motorway network is currently operated by private companies and 90% of these concessions "are due to expire between 2031 and 2036", the ministry said.

Currently, of the 13 billion euros per year collected by concession companies, one third is used to finance the maintenance and operation of the motorway network, one third goes back to the state budget in the form of taxes and the last third was intended to repay the capital initially invested to build the motorways or to repay their debts, the ministry detailed.

A large part of this last third (2,5 to 3 billion euros out of approximately 4 billion) will be able to return to the state budget and then be allocated to transport, since a large part of the construction costs have been amortized.

"We will therefore recover an additional 2,5 billion euros each year in the state budget for transport," the ministry added.

To prepare the multi-year law that should follow, the government has entrusted the task of updating the Infrastructure Steering Council chaired by David Valance "which must submit its proposals at the end of the first quarter".

The framework law should also ensure that "systematize" or encourage, for all communities or transport organizing authorities, the indexing of transport tariffs to inflation.