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Abstract
France has a long lasting experience both in motorways building and in motorways management
with special reference to concessions. As matter of fact it has developed many specific
organizational procedures, and lessons can be drawn for the future from this experience. The aim of
this article is to provide some of these lessons looking into the evolution of the French motorway
system in connection with economical and institutional changes.
On the central governments road network, which corresponds to 4% of the whole road network,
40% of traffic is concentrated, in particular on motorways and more especially on toll motorways
(7,840 km), which support an average traffic of 26,400 vehicles/km per day (Table 2). The intercity
motorways, which make the framework of the national network, are usually tolled. The density of
the French motorway network is about 14 km per 1000 square km and 140 km per million
inhabitants.
1
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the organizations, which the
author belongs to
Length (Km)
38,600
41,500
Motorways
10,400
31,000
National roads
28,200
10,500
360,000
1,300
150
Country roads
According to recent law 2004-809, a significant part of the national road network (20,000 km out of
the present 38,600 km) will be transferred to counties from January 2006. Only the core network the main axes having national or European interest - will remain managed, directly or through
concessions, by the national government which represents approximately 18,000 km including the
whole motorways network, 7,840 km of that are under concession. (Graph 1)
Graph 1 - Evolution of national road network (French roads directorate statistics)
The current national network
Actually the road services of the central government are going to be reorganized. At the present
time the French Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is structured on the basis of a central
administration based on Paris and a local network, both at the regional (Direction rgionale de
lquipement) and county levels (Direction dpartementale de lquipement). In a next future,
eleven interregional road directorates (Directions interrgionales des routes) will be set up in order
to manage the 10,000 km of the trunk roads and not tolled motorways (roughly 5,000 km ordinary
roads, 5,000 km double carriageways and motorways). The idea is to run national roads on the basis
of routes superseding the existing area organization (Graph 2). According to each itinerary, the
interregional road directorates will provide users with management and traffic information centers
2
along with maintenance and intervention centers, distributed along the network every 60 km
approximately. The regional directorates will be in charge of the matrise douvrage (i.e.
owners management ).
Graph 2 Interregional road directorates organization (French roads directorate statistics)
Toll motorways
Itineraries run by
interregional road
directories
To be more precise, at the present time the motorways network is composed as follows:
Motorway network length
Toll motorways
Free motorways
2x2 lanes to become motorways
10,400 km
7,840 km
2,560 km
1,035 km
Graph 3
In 2004 (French roads directorate statistics)
Tolled motorways
Free motorways
Financial aspects
The financial aspects of road sector can be appraised from several points of view. In particular, the
evolution of funds devoted to road, split according to the source (user, national tax-payer, local taxpayer), is shown in the following graph (Graph 4). Two main ideas have to be kept in mind: first,
funds devoted to the governments road network (national roads and motorways) coming from the
national budget decrease while funds coming from other sources increase steadily; second,
motorway companies investments have increased whereas resources coming from local authorities
are now stable after a steady increase up to the 90s. At the present time, expenditures carried out by
concessionaire companies on 7,840 km of toll motorways are bigger than public investment
(governmental and local funds) on the rest of national road network (30,600 km). Public and private
funds are used both for maintenance and investments; the split between these two categories being
made according to the Table 4.
Graph 4 Breakdown of financing resources for the French national motorway network from
1973 to 2001 (according to French roads Directorate statistics)
100
90
32%
Concessionnaire
80
companies
53%
70
60
50
Regions
40
30
56%
20
Government
27%
10
0
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
Table 4 - Breakdown of the expenditures on the French National Road Network in 2003
(In billion , Gvt staff non included, according to French roads Directorate statistics)
According to the use:
MAINTENANCE
INVESTMENT
TOTAL
TOLLED
(7,840 km)
0,7
2,1
2,8
UNTOLLED
(30,600 km)
0,6
1,8
2,4
TOTAL
1,3
3,9
5,2
1,70
2,20
1,80
1,60
1,10
1,60
According to the Decree n. 95-81 of January, 24 1995 the toll tariff evolution in France is fixed on
the basis of five-year planning contracts signed between the Government and each concessionaire.
These contracts provide a frame of reference in terms of legal and economic conditions covering a
mid-term horizon. The concession contracts are the legal basis of the concession and the five-year
planning contracts allow a fine-tuning. In particular, they deal with three main aspects:
the companies agreed objectives concerning maintenance and investments in infrastructures
and services;
the companies agreed objectives concerning road safety, social policy and environmental
protection.
the obligations and rights in terms of toll tariff evolution according to the financial and toll
policies pursued;
The first generation of five-year contracts drew to a close at the end of 1999. Because of the
ongoing reforms in the concession system and TVA regulation, the preparation of new contracts has
been held up until 2001. Five new contracts have been signed since then and others will be signed
in a near future.
From 1994 to 2000: contractualisation and consolidation inside the public sector,
extension of tolls in urban areas
Since 1995 (decree 95-81, mentioned), multi-year contracts for investment have been implemented;
these contracts make a balance between investments and toll increases and give certainty to
concessionaires for a five-year range. The semi-public companies have been consolidated into three
main groups in order to gain in terms of geographical coherence and financial viability. Parallel to
this consolidation, there has been an increase in capital (from about EURO 4 million to EURO 150
million). From the mid-nineties, toll entered in cities, through specific links, and with some
difficulties due to acceptability issues. The first intra-urban motorway was the Prado-Carnage
tunnel inside Marseille (1993), which connected the center of the city (Canebire) to the eastern part
of the agglomeration through a tunnel that already existed and had just to be reshaped. The tunnel
was franchised to a private company, which run it successfully. In Lyon, the TEO scheme (1997,
about 10 km long) was not so successful; the toll motorway was auctioned and franchised to a
private consortium, which levied a too high toll; after demonstrations and protestations of the users,
the municipality, COURLY, Le Grand Lyon, cancelled the franchise at a great expense and operated
by itself the link, with a much lower toll; the operator is EPERLY. Another urban toll link was built
in 1998 in the Ile-de-France agglomeration (A14, La Dfense - Orgeval, about 20 km long), and
worked successfully. A toll motorway link (A86, about 20 km long with an innovative low gauge
double deck tunnel), which will achieve the second ring road around Paris, is presently under
construction.
significant oversubscription. As far as ASF is concerned, quotation is now around 39 euros while
the initial one was 24 euros; it means that the quotation has increased more than 50% in three years.
107 km
67 km
7 km
10 km
Private companies
COFIROUTE
SMTPC (Prado-Carnage)
896 km
2,5 km
Viaduc de MILLAU
ALIS
4.9
Largely state owned companies
0.8
Cofiroute
From French roads Directorate statistics
Table 8 - Indicative market values
Reconstruction cost 70 billion (toll motorways)
State owned shares market value 7-9 billion
From French roads Directorate statistics
The future?
The evolution of the French motorway concession system is fundamentally a pragmatic process
with no dogmas; the main concern was to meet the issues when they occur with a streamline of
providing the country with the infrastructures needed. Now with a meshed mature network and a
significant part of equity of the companies floated, a question arises: what is a concession company?
- a way of managing facilities in a comprehensive manner and on a long range and/or earmarking
resources in a public-public partnership,
- a commercial company, even listed, but with a systematic distribution of dividends (and an
expected recycling in transport infrastructure through AFITF - Agence de financement des
infrastructures de transport de France created by decree 2004-1317, 2/11/2004),
- a way for contractors to have contracts awarded,
- a company with an actual business plan and the subsequent means.
- In case of toll is users charge the recovery of costs or price of provision for a service.
The two core questions are:
- May a motorway be managed in a regulated market economy or, at the end of the day, is it a
natural monopoly de facto under administrative control?
- How to deal with external effects and channel the possible corresponding resources?
The answers are not clear and the European Commissions proposals and acts seem definitively non
consistent with the displayed policies about transport policy, PPP, , and arouse a major legal
uncertainty. Nevertheless, at the present time some changes can be stated:
- First, the French legislation (ordinance n2004-559, 17/06/2004, as approved by law n20041343, 09/12/2004; law n 2004-809, 13/08/2004, article 20) has recently made possible more
diversified private-public partnerships, allowing for instance for some kind of shadow toll
arrangements, both for the State and for the local authorities.
- Secondly, tolling without concession which are now in operation in Switzerland, under
implementation in Germany for Heavy Good Vehicles and under consideration in other
countries such as UK, and the urban road pricing scheme now in operation in London, may give
prospect for new systems of tolling for instance zonal pricing or network pricing instead of link
pricing, for unbundling concession and toll and for a service approach of infrastructure
provision.
- Thirdly the move from an era of intense investment to completion of projects and from links to
a meshed network is a new challenge. Another challenge is to face the need of maintenance and
more effective and user-friendly operation.
- Last but not least to set up new relationship between State and more private and autonomous
partners needs a life-long fine-tuning of contracts (concession contract and contrats
dentreprise) and new skills for a new regulation.
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To find a right balance between competition and partnership is a new task for both private and
public partners and the European commission as well. An approach of regulation based on a
negative image of relationship with private enterprise and, in a certain extent, a mistrust, which
implies drawing up contracts as precise and as short-term as possible, is facing practical problems
such as the cost of monitoring, the training of regulators and the setting up of benchmarks. To aim
the best efficiency and not to respect dogmas the French pragmatic approach has been largely
different, both in its structure and in its set of guidelines. It is founded not on a theory of
countervailing powers but on a partnership with contractors vested with a long-term contract (which
allows investment with postponed profitability). The use of pragmatic approaches and trust between
the partners are two main factors.
According to these approaches, France struggles for a specific regulation for toll concessions on the
occasion of Eurovignette reform negotiations. As the Commission has already at its disposal
effective means to investigate on procurement procedures, France is ready to provide any suitable
information to European Commission but advocates that any other administrative constraints would
nullifying the concession procedure. In particular, any bureaucratic setting of toll seems to be in
conflict with the principle of regulation of free market.
A double challenge has to be faced:
To reconcile the effectiveness of provision of public utilities and to meet the specific features of
infrastructure (such as risk management and externalities) with the effectiveness of contractual
arrangements concluded after bidding (even if the standard competitive market makes it less
disputable inter alia because of lack of actors able to enter) a global comprehensive view from
construction of infrastructure itself to services to final users through maintenance and operation
within a long term contract leaving a reasonable level of freedom to the contractor is needed.
To contain transaction and monitoring costs and to internalize regulation?
It can be met by a double transition towards a renewed public-private partnership:
a transition from standard liberal institutional schemes to a less dogmatic and more cooperative
one (with a political but uncaptured regulator).
a need for a transition from economies totally led by State or with a strong State interventionism
culture (as in France) to more market-oriented practices, with more explicit contractual
arrangements.
These migrations seem to be on the way. In its 1994 World Development Report entitled
Infrastructure for development the World Bank stressed on using markets in infrastructure ;
the 1997 World Development Report is about State in a changing world . Coming after a
substantial amount of reports and communications, the White paper European transport policy for
2010: time to decide (COM/2001/370) advocated public private partnership and pooling of the
revenue from infrastructure charges to solve the headache of funding. But to refer to Max Weber,
the major problem with capitalism is not the source of capital but the development of the capitalist
mentality, both in private and public sectors without forgetting the European Commission, which is
the guardian of a market economy.
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References
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