Gares & Connexions is in charge of renovating and developing the 3,000 railway stations in France. Six years after the business unit was established, Patrick Ropert, its director since October 2014, reflects on its key goals and sets out the two priorities of its road map.
In 2010, total investment stood at €150 million, and is set to be €330 million in 2015. Between 2015 and 2020, Gares & Connexions will invest more than €2.2 billion in projects to transform the stations of Bordeaux, Lyon Part-Dieu, Rennes, Nantes, Paris Montparnasse, Paris Lyon and of course Paris Nord.
First priority: defining the new role that stations will play in people’s lives
Our ambition is to accelerate the process of making stations living, breathing spaces and focal points for human contact. Our business underpins community life, and our job is to foster a more harmonious and dynamic society by undertaking three key activities:
1. Offer even more essential daily services, for example digitalising stations by strengthening 3G/4G networks in stations and trains, as well as providing free, high-quality Wi-Fi in over 50 stations by the end of June 2015.
2. Build the stations of the future with the help of local residents
Initiate community-level dialogue on what the stations of the future will look like by organising open-floor design workshops using OuiShare, encouraging station users and neighbours from the surrounding area to identify new services.
3. Enrich the station experience itself by giving it an artistic and musical dimension:
• Contemporary art has made its way into stations, an aspect we intend to pursue. Since 2 March, a taster of the David Bowie exhibition at the Paris Philharmonie has been on show to the 700,000 daily users of the Gare du Nord.
• To improve the station experience, we are encouraging people to make use of the 100 pianos in our stations.
Second priority: accelerating the creation of a new business sector
Stations have given rise to a new business sector: in-station retail. Shops help make our stations increasingly accessible, equipped, modern, connected and integrated within cities. In-station retailing will soon be one of the major areas of growth for the majority of French brands.
This business is worth more than €1 billion in France. It contributed €170 million to the turnover of Gares & Connexions in 2014, and we see the potential for it to double by 2023.
(Source: SNCF)
