The article « Comment la France est en train de tuer le TGV » (How France is killing the TGV, in French), published on 23 June in Les Echos, has the double merit of drawing attention to, and sharing facts about, the challenges SNCF faces (and tomorrow, together with RFF, the rail infrastructure manager) with its TGV high-speed offer. However, beyond the economic and organisational issues specific to the rail system, the TGV also reveals collective French weaknesses – and, implicitly, shared challenges.
The French, despite a Cartesian tradition, love to resort to magical thinking: a new and necessarily ideal organisation will restore synergies between teams; a naturally providential man or woman will adapt 60 million fellow citizens to the transformations of the world; the inevitable return of a favourable economic cycle will bring growth back… And, at the end of this period of rail strikes, the TGV will of course bring attractiveness and jobs to a region.
What if we applied decision-making and action methods from the business world to this fascinating and emotive subject, starting with the question: a TGV – what for?
Restoring consistency between investment and transport offers
Before RFF was created, SNCF could promote to its public supervisory authority the construction of infrastructure on which its future transport offers would rely. No doubt those were also different times, when public debt could still be accepted, or more simply ignored. But at least there was consistency between the two components of a high-speed transport offer: infrastructure and services.
With the creation of RFF came the temptation to “sprinkle” investments around to buy a kind of “social peace”, sometimes almost regardless of the economic relevance of the future offers.
Moreover, as in other cases of entities created by splitting, RFF was built “against” SNCF. It was said to be essential to give guarantees of independence with a view to opening the rail market to “new entrants”. Intellectually, why not. And then, we hear so often that one must always “kill the father”… But in practice, SNCF was – and still is, for almost all passenger services – the sole operator, with historic knowledge of the network and markets.
Refusing synergies with the historic operator – at least forward-looking ones, and not excluding opening up to others – meant depriving oneself of expertise that is naturally scarce (because in the absence of a competitive market, training is provided by the sole operator: that is rational and economical). And using external providers, or generalist engineers, could only partly meet the needs. Add the very French “caste conflicts” between alumni of the Republic’s various grandes écoles, and the transfer of a few railway workers keen to “prove” their allegiance to the new body through radical opposition to their former employer… The lack of synergies was then, if not inevitable, highly likely.
Of course, one might have objected that the common supervisory authority should have been able to settle disputes between investment strategies. But how often have we seen leading politicians – naturally concerned about a “next move” closely tied to their popularity – take the risk of an explicit refusal? Here again, it has always been much more prudent, and therefore common, to sprinkle projects around – or more precisely to “phase” them… A bit now, a bit later… at least you can say you got it!
So will merging the two public industrial and commercial bodies (EPICs) within a single structure resolve the lack of synergy and the issues of consistency between infrastructure and offers? Unlike a ministerial office, whose objectives are sometimes contradictory, a corporate executive committee is meant to adopt and, above all, implement a coherent strategy, including (and especially) in uncertain situations. The fact remains that organisational unity offers no magic answer to the issues of interfaces and synergies, which rest in particular on human interactions, the complementarity of talents and “cultural” habits, internal processes and individual agendas… All the more so since, at the very top of companies, strong personalities rich in expertise, successes and convictions have to be made to work together: a real challenge.
Let us bet that its Chairman, who has already successfully led many transformations of an SNCF still riddled with statutory, human and organisational rigidities, will succeed in leading an enlarged team.
More than a magic wand: everyone’s mobilisation
Beyond the philosophical criticisms it may provoke, magical thinking has one major drawback: it absolves everyone of responsibility and encourages the “free rider” reflex. If everything happens by magic in the end, why change one’s habits, question oneself, foster creativity, step up a gear? All one needs is to find the right magician – or the right intercessor.
Until now, and still today, many local elected officials have always wanted “their” TGV, seen as bringing positive dynamics.
And if TGV projects meet opposition, it is most often because of the environmental impact of the infrastructure, very often linked to major financial stakes in “compensating” the areas crossed: issues taken into account by RFF and the National Public Debate Commission in the institutional “consultation” procedures, and generating millions of euros in services, financial transfers and various developments.
Today, we are also beginning to hear opposition linked to the financial squeeze on the State and local authorities, and to possible trade-offs between infrastructure projects, but also between transport investment and social spending, or simply tax increases…
But always, the TGV is claimed by its promoters, implicitly or explicitly, as the vehicle of an obviously beneficial “wave of the magic wand”.
So when some elected officials justify the need for “their” TGV by arguing that supply will create traffic, it would also be useful to ask two questions: do you really take the TGV for the pleasure of the journey, or to go to a place where you want to work or visit? And what do you expect from “your” TGV? To let you go somewhere (where?), or to bring people in? From dormitory towns to “beetroot stations” – as the French call TGV stations built out in the countryside, far from any town – the examples of failure, at least for a few (dozen) years, illustrate the limits of this belief in “automatic” value creation, and remind us that success depends on everyone’s mobilisation.
From “are you one of us?” to “what do you do?”
When rail services – and more generally all development projects – are discussed, the feeling of “downgrading” one perceives stems from the very French importance of “status”. Are you “one of us” or not? An énarque (and in the top-ranked “botte” or not?), an engineer (but from which school?), a TGV town or not…
Rather than judging others by what they “are” – and judging oneself the same way – wouldn’t it be more relevant to ask what they “do”? To move from a static view, frozen in the past, to a dynamic, forward-looking one?
Besides, is the TGV still “France”? It is undoubtedly still a very fine tool, updated and modernised, and envied by many. But must France be so frozen in its past glories that the best it can display is an invention from the 1970s, even updated?
Of course, the TGV is a vehicle for image. Is it so because one “belongs” (or not)?
Today, all the big cities are served by the TGV, if only at “normal” speed – one of the realities the Les Echos article points out. So is it still a distinguishing criterion?
It is a vehicle for image at least when a new service opens because, for a short time, the region served is in the spotlight and must present itself in its best light.
This moment of opening is a challenge in itself, because first impressions often last. And if the station district is not properly developed, if it is difficult to get to one’s destination by public transport or by car, if the tourist offer does not live up to the image projected (quality of hotels, welcome, services…), if local companies are not attractive, the “TGV effect” is soon forgotten.
Moreover, after the first moment of curiosity, choices become more rational. And the TGV is then no longer a vehicle for image, but an object of use.
The TGV as use: new practices
In the age of instant communication and the democratisation of transport (local as well as long-distance), physical mobility is becoming rationalised. People think in terms of use, not image. Attractiveness is no longer linked to “having” the TGV, but to displaying a complete door-to-door journey time: “x hours from…”. The TGV journey is no longer an event; it is a practice, a moment.
This paradigm shift in high-speed rail is emerging, including in the speeches of some political decision-makers, once the first statements, attached to the symbolic dimension, are over.
Another change is gradually appearing. Historically, the TGV was made to go to Paris and, ideally, to bring partners and visitors from there.
But when regional metropolises develop for the benefit of a large catchment area, when business relations are with European neighbours or more distant partners, is the TGV link with Paris really what matters?
And when it comes to demanding nearby stops on the same TGV line, have people really realised that, given braking and acceleration, a regional TER train is faster than a TGV? Here again, for lack of explanation, the perceived image continues to prevail over actual use. So while perceptions are important, and shape human relations, it is also important to update them, rather than treating them as fixed.
When it comes to investment, it is important to consider the nature of the expected TGV effect: image or use? And then to own it as such.
To succeed in getting a return on investment: explanation and commitment
High-speed rail is a complex and fascinating subject, because it relates both to the symbolic, individual and collective, and to the technological, in many fields.
For enthusiasts, we can of course only recommend Michel Leboeuf’s reference work « Grande Vitesse » (Le Cherche Midi), which allows readers to discover or explore every dimension of the subject.
For everyone – public and private actors, experts and users – the case for a TGV investment always benefits from confronting viewpoints, timescales, perceptions and projects. Because debate, when it is contributive rather than confrontational, generates consistency, synergies and value creation.
And above all, for all those who bring a region to life, the key to success is to ask the central question: and what can I do to ensure that this exceptional (because rare) investment becomes part of a wealth-creating ecosystem in which I will myself be an actor? And then to act, with one’s skills, energy, investment capacity and decision-making power.
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