France Ouigo leads the way in lo
Ouigo, SNCF’s new low-fare TGV service, has got off to a flying start since its launch at the beginning of April. As David Briginshaw reports from Paris, the service has already achieved a high satisfaction rating with passengers and attracted more people to rail than expected.
O
NLY a tiny logo on the door tells visitors they have arrived at the unassuming offices of the small but enthusiastic Ouigo team in La Défense in western Paris - a clear indication that the focus is firmly on keeping costs down. “We were given a very simple objective: imagine a new design of high-speed train service with a 40% reduction in operating costs compared with TGV,” says Ouigo’s managing director, Ms Valérie Dehlinger. “Our aim is to enlarge the market by getting people who travel by car to use the train with a very attractive offer in terms of price.” Virtually all of the ƒ10m start-up budget has been spent on refurbishing and reconfiguring four double-deck TGV Duplex trains and developing new IT systems. Dehlinger is very proud of the fact that the whole operation has been set up in just 18 months and has been done entirely in-house without the aid of outside consultants. Indeed, all the 100 or so train staff, including the 10 managers, have been recruited from within SNCF and work under SNCF employment conditions. “We had to build the whole system
from scratch,” says Dehlinger. The work entailed developing a brand image and marketing campaign, redesigning and refitting the trains, building a new information system and website, and designing a new operating and maintenance strategy, all with an eye on achieving the 40% cut in operating costs.
This led to a radical rethink of the way high-speed trains are operated and maintained in France. “We needed to double the usage of our trains,” Dehlinger explains. A TGV is normally
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in service for an average of seven hours a day, but Ouigo trains are out on the track for up to 13 hours/day, clocking up around 80,000km per month. This has been achieved by only conducting routine maintenance at night and carefully planning the work in advance so that it is carried out for seven-and-a-
half of the eight hours which the trains spend in the depot. Heavy maintenance has also been reorganised so that everything can be completed within one five-day session every six months. All Ouigo services are operated by two trains in multiple, which reduces the risk of having to cancel a service due to
IRJ June 2013
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