General

France has a high-quality transport infrastructure in which road, rail, air and water transport all play a significant role. The land transport infrastructure is among the best in the world and continues to improve. The closing decades of the twentieth century saw the development of high-speed trains (trains à grande vitesse – TGVs) and further expansion of the national network of limited access highways.

The French road network is the densest in the world and the longest in the European Union, with a total of about 985,000 km of local, secondary, and main surfaced roads. This figure includes more than 10,000 km of controlled-access divided highways, which gives France the second most extensive superhighway network in Europe. With a traffic density of 30 vehicles per km, the French highway network is well below the European average of 44 vehicles per km. This below-average traffic density facilitates the delivery of freight, 73 percent of which is carried by road in France.

France’s railroad system has a total of about 32,000 km of track, including 167 km of narrow (1 meter) gauge. Annual rail traffic in France comprises 315 million passengers on the main network, 560 million on the regional network around Paris, and 83 million on the high-speed train network. In 2003 the French rail system handled about 126 million metric tons of freight.

With its high-speed trains (trains à grande vitesse – TGVs), France holds the world land speed record – set in 2007 – of 574.8 km per hour. The TGVs, mainly passenger trains, run on about 1,500 km of special track, traveling in normal commerical operation at 270 km an hour. The TGVs connect cities in France, especially Paris, and in adjacent countries, including Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. The first high-speed line opened in 1981 from Lyon to the outskirts of Paris. The TGV network grew through the 1990s, with extensions to Brussels, the introduction of the Eurostar service to London through the Channel Tunnel, and the extension of the TGV-Méditerranée track from Valence to Marseille, which entailed the construction of viaducts and extensive railroad cuttings. Opened in 2001, the latter extension reduced the travel time between Marseille and Paris to just three hours. For the sake of cost savings, much of the future development of high-speed services will involve the use of existing track and specially designed tilting trains. In 1997, to promote greater efficiency across the French rail network, the French National Railroad Company which operates it, the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), was reorganised, and the management of its track and related infrastructure was transferred to a new entity, the Réseau Ferré de France (RFF). When European Union-wide rail freight deregulation became effective in 2003, the RFF was obliged to open its track to freight operators other than the SNCF. Rail freight traffic as a proportion of France’s total freight traffic has declined considerably over the past two decades, and this part of the SNCF’s business has been operating at a loss.

Five of Europe’s 15 busiest ports are located in France: the autonomous maritime ports (owned by the state) of Marseille, Le Havre, Dunkirk, St. Nazaire, and Bordeaux. These five ports, along with France’s other