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"Public transport threatened with cessation of payments"

2020-06-07T13:13:59.172Z


In a tribune at Parisien-today in France, the president of Ile-de-France Mobilités, Valérie Pécresse, and the president of the Groupement de


Valérie Pécresse, president of Ile-de-France Mobilités, and Louis Nègre, president of GART (Grouping of authorities responsible for transport)

"Faced with an unprecedented health crisis which is leading the country to face a major economic and social crisis, the President of the Republic made a strong speech by committing to save our business sectors" whatever the cost " . After the introduction of massive partial unemployment and a business aid program, the government rightly granted € 7 billion in aid to Air France and € 8 billion in the automobile sector.

On several occasions, the mobility organizing authorities have asked the State to request a rapid support plan to prevent our public transport being in default of payments.

The situation is simple: transport players suffer a terrible scissor effect, caught up in the need to have to maintain the highest possible level of supply with additional costs linked to health measures, even as revenues collapse dramatically. Income linked to mobility payments is suffering from the consequences of partial unemployment and the economic crisis. Passenger receipts are also considerably affected by the containment which led to 90% of losses and by rules of physical distancing, both imposed by the State, without taking into account the risk of disaffection of public transport as long as the epidemic is not brought under control. .

The overall deficit for 2020 is thus evaluated at this stage at 4 billion euros, including 2.6 billion euros for Ile-de-France Mobilités. The consequences of this crisis will extend to the year 2021.

Without an assistance plan, the organizing authorities of mobility will no longer be able to pay the RATP, the SNCF and all the other transport companies as of this summer, which will lead the latter, to avoid bankruptcy, to cut investment and especially to greatly reduce the transport offer. However, this sector supports hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs, with operators, but also in public works, train and bus manufacturers, services, etc.

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Daily transport must not be the great forgotten of the rescue plans, at the risk of weakening durably a sector which contributes to the development of the territories, to the right to mobility of the populations and constitutes one of the major assets in terms of attractiveness for our country.

It is important to remember that the first victims of a drastic reduction in public transport would be, above all, the French who have no other alternative for getting around. Public transport plays the role of opening up and social shock absorber which must absolutely not be broken if we want to avoid worsening the difficulties that the country is going through by creating "excluded from mobility". It would be totally unfair to want to make users pay for the consequences of this crisis.

Finally, public transport is also the backbone of clean travel in metropolitan areas and provides mobility solutions at reduced prices in many areas. The government's ambitious trajectory, which aims to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 40% in 2030, must necessarily be accompanied by massive support for everyday transport, as provided for in the French Mobility Orientation Law. Otherwise, it would be the tacit acceptance of a massive transfer to individual vehicles, with deleterious effects on CO2 emissions but also on air pollution.

Many European countries have already set up massive aid programs for this sector as a matter of urgency. We therefore ask that the government can very quickly compensate for the loss of mobility payments and tariff revenue suffered by the mobility organizing authorities. Finally, we sincerely hope that discussions will be initiated, without delay, to establish together a recovery plan for this sector in order to continue the momentum that the State had promised on the priority given to daily transport and sustainable mobility. "

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2020-06-07

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