Posted on Dec 10, 2019 2020 at 12:56Updated 10 Dec. 2020 at 12:57
Continuation, but not yet quite the end for the Rhônexpress file. The Syndicate of public transport of the Rhône and the Lyon agglomeration (Sytral) has just reached a financial agreement with Rhônexpress. The manager of the tram link between the center of Lyon and its airport will pocket 29.87 million euros for severance payments from the public service delegation which, until February, linked him to Sytral. Transdev Rail Rhône, which operates this tram line, is credited with 1.6 million euros.
In the operation, the Sytral recovers a balance of nearly 7 million euros corresponding to sums paid by Rhônexpress to Transdev to carry out maintenance work on the rails which in the end was not done. In the end, the bill is therefore a little lower than the 32 million advanced in February during the vote to terminate the DSP. It also has the merit of putting an end to the thorny Rhônexpress file, but this agreement does not settle everything, however, since it is now necessary to decide on the future mode of management of the service to Saint-Exupéry airport.
Direct management
For the time being, Sytral has taken over the Rhônexpress service directly as it had committed to when voting to terminate the contract. He kept Transdev in charge of the operation of the airport shuttle until December 31, 2022. And beyond? “The elected representatives of Sytral will rule by summer 2021 on the future mode of management of the service in order to launch the competition,” said Sytral in a press release.
A new puzzle, because if in recent years the operation of Rhonexpress was profitable (2.8 million euros in profits in 2018), the crisis has reshuffled the cards and now Rhonexpress is losing money. While waiting to decide on the management method, Sytral has obtained from the Metropolis to continue to take charge of the repayment of the loan of 61.4 million euros taken out by the company Rhônexpress SAS for the works of construction of the infrastructure as well as the costs of sharing the infrastructure with the T3 Tramway line which partly runs on the same rails as the airport shuttle.
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