Transport: Challenging funding options for future metropolitan regional express services

Stop calling them the Metropolitan RER, as Emmanuel Macron did in a YouTube video on November 27, 2022. Designating this form of transport that can replace the individual car in large cities, the Ministry of Transport or the SNCF now prefers to speak of metropolitan regional express services (SERM).

Member of Parliament (Renaissance) Jean-Marc Zules presented a bill that defines them, the text was adopted in the committee on May 30… Around the train, SERMs, with a tight pace (less than thirty minutes, including rush hours), may indeed include trams, buses or even transport requests, provided that They are frequent and very reliable. Real progress, but expensive…

The Infrastructure Orientation Council, in the report it presented to the Prime Minister at the end of February, names 17 billion euros for ten cities. How will this new service be funded? This is another question addressed by Jean-Marc Zules. In the absence of an announcement of budgetary funding, it proposes a methodology.

Temporary charges

In order to benefit from public funds – in addition to funds provided by metropolitan areas, regions and possibly relevant departments – SERM must be “tagged” by the Minister of Transport. Status: “That it creates a real supply shock to achieve the modal shift effect”– explains the deputy. Labeled SERMs will receive part of the €100 billion by 2040 promised to the Prime Minister as part of “New Rail Deal” which he announced at the end of February.

Like the Prime Minister, Mr. Zules suggests that the infrastructure design of future SERMs could be entrusted to the Société du Grand Paris (SGP), which was created in 2010 to design and primarily finance new metro lines between the cities. – France, Grand Paris Express (GPE) – which will operate together with SNCF Réseau. “Therefore, we would like to call it the Société des Grands Projets”, he explains. The MP would particularly like to be able to replicate the funding regime found for GPE for SERMs.

The SGP receives a special equipment tax paid by residents of Ile-de-France, as well as a tax on offices paid by companies, an ad hoc tax system that allows it to borrow in the long term. And to avoid the state more debt. “SGP knows how to take on debt in the financial markets”, the deputy claims. In order to keep this debt under control, its text takes care to define the golden rule: any increase in the debt must be based on additional local tax resources.