Réseau Ferré de France
Réseau Ferré de France ( RFF) is since 1997 the state-owned operator of the French rail network. The company is organizationally subordinated to the French Ministry of Transport and is based in the French capital Paris. Was the management of the rail network earlier still the object of the state as SNCF, carried out according to the standard required by the European Union liberalization separation of infrastructure and operations. RFF is organized as a "public company with industrial and commercial character " ( Établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial, EPIC).
History and Function
Adopted by the European Commission Directive 91/440/EEC on the independence of the infrastructure manager from rail operators came France with the inception of Réseau Ferré de France after in 1997. RFF took over since the tasks of administration, construction, maintenance and the path management of state-owned French railway network. At the same time, however, went the the net financial debt allocated from the state railway SNCF transferred to the new operator. In addition, the French government SNCF guaranteed exclusive access to the network - in return, the railway undertook an economic profitable business. During the SNCF since now pays for the route using a corresponding fee to RFF, the state railway remained the service provider and is responsible for the commercial part of the stations.
Today RFF manages approximately 29,000 kilometers of the French rail network, with over 108,000 hectares of railway land in about 10,000 French municipalities. In 2006 RFF recorded a total loss of 238.4 million euros as opposed to 126.2 million euros in 2005. 2006 RFF invested 2.33 billion euros in the French rail network. RFF employs over 750 people.
Since early 2000, the strict separation between network ( RFF) and operation ( SNCF) is again piecewise withdrawn. Thus, the maintenance of the rail network to the SNCF subsidiary Infra and the path management were on the Direction of Circulations Ferroviaires (DCF ), another SNCF organization transferred. Since this form of organization led to an increased coordination effort between SNCF and RFF, is planned in a second rail reform from 2013 to summarize all relevant functions for the railway network in the new SNCF subsidiary Gestionnaire d' Infrastructure unifié ( GIU ).
But there are still private railway transport companies such as Euro Cargo Rail and Veolia Transport. These companies are previously only operated in freight traffic. The company Thello, which operates night trains from Paris to Venice since December 2011, is the first of its kind in France.