France, a country with 246 kinds of cheese... and thirteen million wandering travelers.
Thirteen million is the number of pieces of luggage forgotten in stations and on French trains last year.
In the past, the phenomenon went almost unnoticed - except for the poor devils dispossessed of their precious belongings, the luckiest of whom found them in lost and found items.
But today, the management of “left luggage” has become a completely different matter.
The reason ?
The risk of attack.
The Vigipirate plan now requires carriers to be more vigilant but also to circumscribe the area where baggage has been forgotten.
So many precautions that are very expensive for the SNCF.
In one year, the processing of forgotten suitcases caused more delays than the major breakdown that we experienced in Montparnasse.
620,000 minutes lost in total in 2021, making it the leading cause of delays for TGVs and Intercités.
A plague!
One in two passengers are reluctant to put a label on their suitcases, as much out of negligence as to preserve their anonymity
Alain Krakovitch, director of Voyages SNCF
The compulsory labeling of baggage, while it may seem superfluous to some travellers, has the merit of making it possible to warn the person who had forgotten their baggage.
And therefore, to avoid calling on demining services.
Alas,
"one in two passengers are reluctant to put a label on their suitcases, as much out of negligence as to preserve their anonymity"
, explains Alain Krakovitch, the director of Voyages SNCF.
In an attempt to convince this recalcitrant half, the national company has therefore just launched its latest innovation: labels with QR codes, which it hopes will convince travelers wishing to go unnoticed.
The principle is very simple: a plastic label with a QR code is distributed at the station.
Once scanned on your smartphone, it will automatically direct you to a dedicated website where you will enter your name, address and telephone number.
Thus, if you forget your suitcase, only SNCF agents will be able to access your personal information.
Passengers will obviously always have the choice between the traditional label or the label with QR code.
Gadget or really useful?
It will be necessary to ask passengers from the Atlantic and the South-East, TGV axes on which the device has been deployed since Saturday July 2.