THE launch of the new limited-stop service between Marseille and Nice on June 29 2025 marked “a tremendous change in the French railway landscape,” according to Transdev France CEO, Edouard Hénaut.
Departing from Nice at 05.34 that day was the first regional passenger service to be operated on the national network by a private company since nationalisation created French National Railways (SNCF) in 1938. It was also a very important moment for Transdev itself, which despite extensive experience of regional operations in Germany and Sweden, and a strong presence in the light rail and bus markets in France, had only previously operated on the national network as a subcontractor to SNCF on the rural Carhaix - Guingamp - Paimpol line in Brittany. Now it operates an hourly service over the 158km that separate Nice from Marseille, the second-largest city in France, serving major centres along the tourist hotspot of the Côte d’Azur.
Transdev’s fellow pioneer is the Sud region, also known as Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (Paca), which in 2019 became the first in France to tender contracts to operate TER regional services that were formerly the exclusive preserve of SNCF as monopoly operator. In November 2021 Transdev was awarded a 10-year contract worth €870m to operate the limited-stop service between Marseille Saint-Charles and Nice Ville, calling at Toulon, Carnoules, Les Arcs-Draguignan, Saint Raphaël-Valescure, Cannes, Antibes and Nice Saint-Augustin. The service represents 10% of TER traffic in the Sud region, and is now operated under the Zou! brand adopted by the region for its TER network.
As Hénaut points out, from contract award Transdev had three-and-a-half years to prepare for the start of operations, which included ordering a new fleet and building a new maintenance depot in Nice, as well as developing the IT backbone to enable operational data to be exchanged with infrastructure manager SNCF Network and station operator SNCF Gares & Connexions. Regulatory procedures included the new local subsidiary created to operate the service, Transdev Rail Sud Inter-Métropoles (TRSI), obtaining its passenger licence and a single safety certificate (SSC), the latter granted on August 25 2024 for an initial period of five years.
Fleet delays
Transdev’s slogan for the new service is “everything changes, except the view,” and a key component of the new image for Marseille - Nice is the fleet of 16 eight-car Omneo Premium double-deck EMUs that Transdev ordered from Alstom in December 2021 at a cost of €250m, funded by the region. With a total of 352 seats and offering both first and second class, the new trains provide a travelling environment closer to a high-speed train than the regional rolling stock of the past, Hénaut says. Passengers are offered level boarding, onboard Wi-Fi, USB power sockets, and drinks and snack vending machines. But perhaps the key difference is that the new trains are air-conditioned, something that was certainly appreciated when temperatures in the south of France reached 40°C in July and August last year.
Not all was plain sailing with the new fleet, however. One year before the start of operations, Alstom informed Transdev that delivery of the 16 trains would not be possible by the required deadline. Production delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of the war in Ukraine and wider supply chain issues, including a worldwide shortage of semiconductors, were all cited. “It was a real issue for us,” Hénaut says, as the operating contract specified that operations must start with the new trains and nothing was available from the Sud regional fleet. The start of the new service could not be delayed, the arrival of France’s first private operator being a major event that was “long-awaited by the entire market,” Hénaut says. “The pressure on us was very high.”
With only eight of the 16 trains available for the start of service, 12 trains were leased from other regions, including one similar Omneo double-deck EMU from Centre-Val-de-Loire, and three shorter Régio 2N double-deck EMUs from Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. Eight Régiolis single-deck bi-mode trains came from Grand Est, reducing the total available passenger capacity. What Hénaut describes as “a very intense preparation period” was further complicated by the need to certify all drivers on these three additional types of rolling stock.
Despite these difficulties, “the level of service specified in the contract was entirely delivered,” Hénaut says. Transdev is required to operate 14 services a day in each direction at hourly intervals, double the previous SNCF frequency, with 16 on Saturdays. Trains run between 06.00 and 23.00, while the end-to-end journey time is 2h 40min. Assessed on the basis of delays caused by Transdev itself, train punctuality is reported daily to the Sud region as the client. On the first day of operations it was 93.6%, climbing to 93.8% by the end of the first week and continuing on an upward trajectory. In the first six months of operation punctuality was 97.2%, slightly less than the contractual target of 97.5% but not sufficiently below target to incur a penalty. During the last quarter of 2025, punctuality was above 98%.
Given the problems arising from starting operations with a mixed fleet, Hénaut describes this performance as “a big success.” By November 24 2025 all 16 EMUs had been delivered by Alstom, with the rolling stock on loan returning to its home regions, having been maintained during its deployment between Marseille and Nice by SNCF Passenger, “our main competitor,” as Hénaut notes. “It was not planned to be like that, but we agreed it with the client and made it a success.”
Key to Transdev’s bidding and operating strategy is taking overall responsibility for maintenance in order to maximise fleet availability. The Alstom fleet is maintained at a new 2000m² depot in the centre of Nice. Built by French construction group NGE at a cost of €36m, it has been financed and is owned by the Sud region, which also owns the fleet. As well as providing stabling, the depot is equipped with a single track where all maintenance tasks can be performed, including lifting an entire train weighing 260 tonnes in a single operation. While this is common practice elsewhere in Europe, it is novel for regional fleet maintenance in France, Hénaut says, while pointing out that “all the technology is proven.” Maintenance is shared between the operator and the train manufacturer. Transdev is responsible for levels 1 and 2, while Alstom undertakes heavier work under levels 3 and 4 of a predictive maintenance regime, following a new model approved by France’s rail safety regulator, EPSF.
Building the team
While Transdev started assembling its management team soon after contract award, recruitment began in earnest two years before the start of operations. By January 1 2025 there were 68 employees at the new local subsidiary, firmly grounded in the region it serves while drawing on Transdev corporate expertise as required. Transdev strongly believes in a decentralised management structure. “The model here is not to create a small SNCF,” Hénaut says.
A total of 31 staff transferred from the national operator, including drivers and maintenance staff, while Transdev created 190 new jobs, including onboard staff. Training all 44 drivers took one-and-a-half years, with three transferring from SNCF and the remaining 41 including freight drivers as well as Transdev employees with experience of light rail or bus operations. Around 20% of employees previously worked for Transdev, and over the coming months negotiations will take place with three trade unions to agree new unified terms and conditions for all employees. While this is expected to result in less demarcation between different roles, Hénaut stresses that the role of driver will remain very specific, although “one very big difference” will be removing the need for staff to spend nights away from home when on duty. Another SNCF practice that will not be retained is the separate category of driver who takes charge of empty trains between the first or last station and the depot.
Over 2.5 million passengers were carried on the Marseille - Nice line during the first six months of operation, slightly ahead of projections and probably due to this period including the peak holiday months of July and August, a busy time on the Côte d’Azur. Summing up Transdev’s first six months of operations on the Marseille - Nice line, Hénaut says the operator has “delivered and guaranteed the quality of the service provided to our passengers,” who he says are “very satisfied,” scoring Transdev 4.4 out of 5 in a customer satisfaction survey. Hénaut reports that by December 2025, ridership was up by 22% when compared with the previous operator, SNCF Passenger. After six months, “we are exactly on target,” he says.
Growing gradually
TRANSDEV is currently preparing for the start of what Hénaut describes as “another first in France,” a 22-year concession to reopen and then operate and maintain the 75km Nancy - Contrexéville line in eastern France, which closed in 2016.
Transdev holds a 20% stake in the Nova 14 consortium that was awarded the concession by the Grand Est region in August 2022, its partners being NGE Concessions (50%) and Banque des Territoires (30%), part of the Caisse des Dépôts group. Passenger operations, as well as infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance, will be undertaken by a separate company owned by Transdev Rail (75%) and NGE Exploitation (25%), with services due to start on December 12 2027. This will be the first time a section of the national network is managed by an infrastructure manager other than SNCF Network.
“We want to grow smoothly in a manageable way and integrate new employees.”
Edouard Hénaut
Elsewhere in France, Hénaut reports that Transdev is in the best and final offer stage of other more conventional regional tenders, including a contract that the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region is expected to award in May for lines radiating from Saintes in Poitou-Charentes that serve Poitiers, La Rochelle, Angoulême and Niort. According to French media reports, Transdev is bidding against new entrant Le Train and Spanish national operator Renfe as well as SNCF Passenger. Hénaut says Transdev will also bid for the package of lines radiating from Reims in the Grand Est region, and for the Strasbourg - Saint-Dié and Strasbourg - Sélestat lines in the same region.
Hénaut says that not being required to share rolling stock maintenance facilities with the incumbent is one of the main criteria that Transdev applies in selecting which tenders to bid for. “It is very important for us to have 100% in-house maintenance,” he says. The size of the network to be operated is also another important factor. “We want to grow smoothly in a manageable way and integrate new employees,” he says.
Photo: David Haydock
With each bid costing €2-€3m, and placing demands on finite staff resources, Hénaut expects Transdev to bid for a maximum of three to four regional operating contracts a year in France. “It’s important to grow step by step,” he says, “and not too quickly and then not deliver the service that passengers expect.”
As they are tendered by Île-de-France Mobility (IdFM), Transdev is also interested in bidding for contracts to operate Transilien commuter services in Paris, but always with the objective of “not going too fast” and maintaining a smooth growth trajectory. “You need to have people, you need to create the teams,” Hénaut says.
Market opening enters second phase
TRANSDEV is an active member of the French Rail Association (Afra), an organisation that brings together passenger and freight operators other than SNCF to support their development as the French rail market opens up to competition. Afra president, Marco Caposciutti, believes that this process has now entered its second phase, as existing members look to consolidate and grow their operations in France, and other new entrants such as European Sleeper prepare to join the ranks of the association.
One issue that those seeking to enter the French passenger market have highlighted in the past is the comparatively high level of track access charges when compared with other national networks in Europe, mainly due to government policy to primarily cover the cost of infrastructure management from this source, rather than using public funding to meet fixed costs and encourage the development of rail services by lowering access charges.
As government policy, this is therefore something of a fact of life in France and a basic condition for gaining access to the network, but Caposciutti agrees that “track access charges for high-speed services in particular are very high.” What Afra is working to change is the requirement to pay 20-30% of annual track access charges in advance to SNCF Network at the end of the preceding year, which while not an issue for SNCF, is a problem for smaller passenger operators that may not have so much income from advance ticket sales in the bank.
Caposciutti is CEO of Trenitalia France which submitted a bid for the Marseille - Nice regional operating contract. The Italian State Railways (FS) subsidiary is now concentrating on high-speed services, consolidating its position as the first operator to compete with SNCF in its home market. The process of bidding for regional operating contracts is complex and expensive, Caposciutti says, with the lack of standardised documentation that can be used for tenders in different regions also an issue.
FS announced last month a strategic partnership with US investment firm Certares to develop Trenitalia’s high-speed operations outside Italy, including support for a €1bn investment plan in France and Britain that includes an initial investment round of €300m. This will focus on Trenitalia France where initiatives will include growing the fleet from nine to at least 19 trains and increasing frequencies on its existing routes from Paris to Lyon and Marseille, with up to 28 trains a day planned between Paris and Lyon.
Key to this will be Trenitalia France building its own facility to maintain its Frecciarossa fleet, rather than rely on its competitor SNCF to perform this task. Caposciutti says that Trenitalia France has leased a site from SNCF Network at Maisons Alfort-Pompadour, south of Paris Lyon station, where the new facility is expected to take four years to complete and will be open to other operators.
