Transport Expertise Association

English publications…

Western extension of the HSR network toward Brittany

A partnership contract to finance a €3.4 billion project
French Transportation Minister Jean-Louis Borloo confirmed that a future High-Speed Rail link from Le Mans to Rennes (more precisely from Connerré in Sarthe to Cesson-Sévigné in Ille-et-Vilaine) would be build, and financed through a Partnership Contract (contrat de partenariat) agreement. The project includes two segments of 182 [...]

Special announcement from the Editor

Everybody knows summer is a “slow” period. Thus we have not been writing a lot in the last couple weeks on Transport Expertise, but we did quite a bit of thinking to improve the services we provide, and to choose what we will write about in the future.
After six month of successful activity, we needed [...]

One year, 26 million trips, 3,000 losses: Velib’ in Paris!

A short brief about the free-access bikes made available by Paris City, in collaboration with JCDecaux advertising company.
Velib’ will celebrate next week its first anniversary and results seem to be far beyond expectations.
Every day, an average 110-120,000 bikes are rented, to ride an average 18 minutes, and Velib’ just past the 26 millionth rental.
As of [...]

In brief: SNCF take over bid on Geodis is a success

The operation is (apparently) a success: according to a report from the stocks market authority (Autorité des marchés financiers, AMF), SNCF, the French national railway operator, would hold more than 95% of Geodis shares and right of votes.
This announcement was made by the AMF on Monday, July 7 and the final result of the take [...]

GAO Month in Review – June 2008

Here are the latest US Government Accountability Office (US GAO) reports about transportation, published in June 2008.

Coast Guard: Strategies for Mitigating the Loss of Patrol Boats Are Achieving Results in the Near Term, but They Come at a Cost and Longer Term Sustainability Is Unknown. GAO-08-660, June 23, 2008 (56 pages).
http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-08-660
Federal Aviation Administration: Efforts to [...]

Future HSR line to Brittany: local governments participate in the funding

There is a way to finance infrastructure when the National Government does not have enough money… simply rely on the Local and Regional Governments!
A future high-speed rail line extension is planned from Paris toward the west side of France, also known as Brittany, Bretagne in French. As of today, on a regular map of France, [...]