Our vision of tomorrow's network

Tomorrow's network will accommodate more trains

After years of investment in high-speed rail, which has revolutionised transport in France, the time has come to focus on improving the performance and resilience of the existing network. With one objective: to double the number of passenger and freight trains on the French network and beyond.  

Where will we be in 10 years' time?

It's not easy to look so far ahead. Yet it is this long-term vision that enables us to imagine the network of the future. It's a time of massive investment and planning of major projects. It is the time necessary for the construction of infrastructure and deployment of new interconnected technologies. Our course is clear: while continuing with our major new line projects, we need to develop new transport offers on the existing network.  

The momentum of the new rail deal

Our contract with the State

In 2023, the government announced a plan to invest a further €100 billion between now and 2040.

This announcement is the concrete expression of a new railway ambition for France. For SNCF Réseau and all the players in the rail industry, this is both a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. Together, we need to make a collective commitment to meet the challenges of the future. 

While the details of the plan have yet to be worked out, the State has already secured funding for network regeneration and modernisation. This is in addition to our own investments, which amounted to 7 billion in 2023.  

+ €1bn per year for regeneration  

Regeneration is carried out on an industrial scale on the core network, i.e. the busiest part of the network, which carries all TGV and Intercity trains, as well as 82% of TER trains and 75% of freight trains. This effort also extends to the Île-de-France network and to the lines providing comprehensive regional coverage.  

+ €500m per year for modernisation 

The modernisation of the network involves accelerating the deployment of Centralised network control, the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) and 5G. We will also be renewing the equipment and facilities needed to handle the increase in freight traffic. 

The main areas of rail network development

Thanks to this funding, we will be able to develop metropolitan regional express services, continue our major new line projects and roll out the interoperability of the trans-European network.

  • Doubling passenger traffic

    thanks to metropolitan regional express services and new line projects

  • Doubling goods traffic

    by facilitating the modal shift from road to rail

  • Building Europe's railways

    a network that is 100% interoperable with our European neighbours

    Find out more

The prerequisites

Regeneration and modernisation, which are indispensable prerequisites to these new mobility offers, remain our absolute priorities however, and are essential steps in making the network more robust and efficient.

  • Massive regeneration of the busiest tracks and oldest catenaries, for more resilient infrastructure 
  • Modernisation of signalling systems and standardisation of management of services for more efficient operations 

A real industrial challenge

We're going to have to combine a lot of works on the existing network with an increase in services on that same network. Because works or not, trains continue to run day and night!

A network that must also adapt to climate change

Since 2015, climate change has been identified as a major risk for the rail network. Our teams analyse the risks and anticipate the actions required to ensure the network's long-term robustness. The challenge is to reduce the vulnerability of rail infrastructure to increasingly intense and frequent climatic events.