The new Le Havre–Serqueux–Gisors–Paris rail freight corridor

Throughout Northern Europe, from Belgium to Germany, ports have developed a strategy of close links between port-rail corridors and local hinterlands to optimize the management of container flows and to meet the requirements of European Transport Policy, which aims to reduce CO₂ emissions, a major by-product of road freight transport. Indeed, a rail corridor, such as the Betuweroute in the Netherlands, presented by experts as a blueprint for efficient freight transportation, paves the way for the massified management of containers and an outsourcing from the port to the hinterland of all secondary functions, such as customs clearance and dispatching. How do things stand for France’s port of Le Havre? In March 2021, the state-owned railway infrastructure manager, SNCF Réseau, with the help of the Normandy region, the French State, and the European Union, opened a freight corridor between Le Havre, Serqueux, Gisors, Pontoise, and Paris. As it enters its second year of operation, this corridor is struggling to gain ground, since track access charges are more expensive than on the conventional Seine Valley route. Suburban trains and commuter services serving Paris and the surrounding region – the vast network of Transiliens and RER passenger services – take priority and complicate the exit into the Île-de-France region. Local residents and their elected representatives, averse to the railway noise, are also voicing their opposition to this new corridor.