{"id":287503,"date":"2025-09-19T17:45:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=66048"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:45:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:45:53","slug":"new-froidcombi-service-highlights-congestion-at-french-terminals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=287503","title":{"rendered":"New FroidCombi service highlights congestion at French terminals"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new service recently launched by French combined road-rail transport operator FroidCombi\u2019s has brought into sharp relief the issue of congestion at the country\u2019s handling terminals. The company, which is jointly-owned by SNCF and two French road haulage and logistics groups, ID Logistics and STEF, specialises in the shipment of fresh and frozen produce between southern and northern France,<\/strong>
\n<\/span>In addition to the operation of three, daily round-trip services (Monday to Friday) between Avignon and Dourges and Avignon and Paris\/Valenton, FroidCombi earlier this month introduced a daily service between Arles, located less than 40 kilometers from Avignon, to the inland port of Lille.<\/p>\n

The choice of Arles as the departure point of the new service was a direct result of growing volumes of traffic at the Avignon terminal which has left it completely congested, FroidCombi\u2019s president and CEO, R\u00e9my Crochet explained to RailFreight.com in an interview. The new service from Arles is handling a little less fruit and vegetables traffic than Avignon with loads also made up of frozen goods and industrial products, he noted.<\/p>\n

\"Remy
Remy Crochet. Image: LinkedIn \u00a9 Groupement National des Transports Combin\u00e9s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s all about the terminals<\/h2>\n

At the start of this year, Crochet highlighted the necessity of efficient handling terminals if \u2018combi\u2019 transport was to thrive in France. \u201cIt really is all about terminals. One might have a mediocre train path and a mediocre standard of service but if you don\u2019t have terminals you can\u2019t make up trains and we absolutely have to move forward in expanding such provision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout adequate terminals, we won\u2019t achieve a modal freight traffic share for rail of 18% (compared to 9-10% currently in France), not even 15% or 13%. It\u2019s just not possible. And today, a large number of terminals are at saturation point,\u201d he said. France has published a \u201cnational master plan\u201d for combined transport which identifies the need for 20 new terminals and the upgrading and extension of existing ones.<\/p>\n

Crochet, who is also heads French combi transport trade body, the GNTC, said that after a strong recovery in traffic last year \u2013 due largely to 2023 being badly-affected by industrial action at the SNCF Group, which weighed significantly on volumes \u2013 traffic growth this year had been modest. \u201cIn the second quarter of 2025 versus the same period in 2024, traffic increased 0.9% in terms of train\/kilometres, +2.2% on domestic routes and-1.5% on international routes.\u201d Traffic has yet to return to 2022 levels, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new service recently launched by French combined road-rail transport operator FroidCombi\u2019s has brought into sharp relief the issue of congestion at the country\u2019s handling\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,17984,65,47],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-287503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france","category-froidcombi","category-intermodal","category-rail-news","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287503"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287621,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287503\/revisions\/287621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}