SNCF subsidiary VIIA is already looking to double weekly frequencies on its rail highway service between Sète and Calais, which was launched as recently as last month. VIIA and Naviland Cargo president Bénédicte Colin indicated that six weekly round trips were planned from January 2026 compared to the current three.
“This increase in capacity is in response to growing customer demand, particularly from Turkey but also from local customers, to whom we will offer an integrated rail-road solution,” she explained speaking to the media at the inauguration of the company’s new rail-road combi terminal at the French Mediterranean port earlier this week.
In 2026, VIIA is targeting the transport of 22,500 semi-trailers and containers between Sète and Calais, rising to 40,000 annually in the longer term, she added. Among VIIA’s partners in the Sète-Calais rolling highway is the Danish shipping company DFDS, which operates six weekly sailings between two Turkish ports and the port of Sète.
SNCF CEO present at inauguration
Also present at the inauguration of the Sète combi terminal was the new SNCF Group CEO, Jean Castex, a former French prime minister. He told the gathering that the development of rail freight was of national interest. “The carbon footprint of rail freight transport is excellent, as is its energy rating. However, compared to the volume of trucks travelling on the A9 motorway (in the vicinity of Sète), rail freight only has a market share of 3% compared to road). We must absolutely take action.”
Castex pointed to the uneven playing field between the two transport modes with road enjoying an unfair competitive advantage over rail freight whose fixed costs are “a lot heavier” and “needs to be supported by the public authorities.” He also underlined that boosting rail freight in the region could not be done without the benefit of a new high-speed rail line between Montpellier and Perpignan, along France’s Mediterranean coast – a project which has triggered a fair degree of opposition for some local municipalities and residents. “Consultation phases are underway. Show me a high-speed rail project that isn’t subject to protest and debate!” he remarked.
‘Connecting sea and rail seamlessly’
For Philippe Malagola, president of the port of Sète, the new combi terminal makes the ecological transition in transport much more accessible for businesses and is a way of “connecting the sea and rail seamlessly”, while creating “a link between the Mediterranean, the English Channel and the North Sea.”
The Sète terminal required the investment of just over 19 million euros with VIIA, the Occitanie public regional council and the port authority each making a contribution. VIIA also recently launched a new rolling highway between Bettembourg, in Luxembourg, and Brittany Ferries’ new combi terminal in Bayonne-Mouguerre, near the French-Spanish border.