The Pays-de-la Loire Region (West of France) is releasing its first tendering procedure for its rail passengers transport services

The Pays-de-la Loire Region (West of France) is releasing its first tendering process for its rail passengers’ transport services

The Pays de la Loire Region, public transport authority for rail passengers, publishes a concession notice opening the « Tram Train » and « Sud Loire » services.

The « Sud Loire » services cover the following lines: Nantes - Pornic, Nantes - Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, Nantes - La Roche-sur-Yon, Nantes – Les Sables d’Olonne, Nantes - La Rochelle, Nantes - Cholet, Angers – Cholet, representing 161 million passenger-kilometers (vk) and a volume of 2,000,000 train.kilometres (tkm) in 2018.

The « Tram-train » services cover the following lines: Nantes - Châteaubriant, Nantes – Clisson, representing an attendance of 37 million passenger-kilometers (vk) and a volume of 800,000 train.kilometres (tkm) in 2018.

Contract awarding is expected in mid-2023 and operation to start in December 2024. The duration of the contract will be 10 years. The tendering file will be communicated after the applications’ approval.

The operator’s main duties will include operating the trains, management, maintaining rolling stock (including heavy maintenance), delivering services and information to the passengers, ticketing, and improving the quality of service. The Region plans to make rolling stock available to the operator. The operator will also have to finance and carry out the installation of a maintenance and storage workshop.

Under the conditions provided by law, the employment contracts of staff contributing to the operations and continuity of the public service will be transferred in the case of a change of the transport operating company.

The opinion is published on the website of the Official Journal of the European Union: https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:560342-2021:HTML:EN:HTML&tabId=0

Deadline for applications is December 13th, 2021 at 12:00. The contract documents are available at the address: https://marchespublics.paysdelaloire.fr/