Speaking before a Senate committee last year on the state of rail freight in France, Matthieu Chabanel, the head of the country’s rail infrastructure manager, SNCF Réseau, called for greater cooperation between ports, rail companies, and other logistics players to drive the sector’s future development. Railfreight.com looks at some French ports engaged in collaborative projects to promote train-borne goods flows.
Port of Cherbourg
In the case of the Port of Cherbourg, collaboration with ro-ro ferry operator Brittany Ferries, has led to the impending launch of a ‘rolling highway’ linking the Normandy port to Bayonne-Mouguerre, near the border with Spain. The service has entailed the construction of two new, dedicated combined rail-road terminals. It will operate year-round and offer several weekly departures from Cherbourg and Bayonne-Mouguerre.
The service is expected to replace Brittany Ferries’ ro-ro shipping service for unaccompanied trailers between Bilbao, in northern Spain, and Poole, on the southern coast of England.
HAROPA Ports
Staying in Normandy, HAROPA Port, in charge of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris ports, is a prime mover in developing train-borne freight services with 100 weekly round-trips to 21 domestic and international destinations. At its request, combined road-rail freight transport operator Be Modal, a subsidiary of Lahaye Global Logistics, is mulling the launch of a service for maritime containers between Rennes, in Brittany and Le Havre, France’s biggest box port, possibly in 2026.
HAROPA Port’s rail freight traffic totalled almost 7 million tonnes last year, an increase of 3.4 per cent on the previous year. In 2025, the overall operational target is for road share to fall to 77 per cent, with rail and river share rising to 12 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.
Port of Marseille-Fos
Turning to the Port of Marseille-Fos, forging closer links with rail companies and logistics players is more of a challenge. Intermodal solutions group Modalis abandoned its plan to build a combined transport terminal at the hub. The project, named Tonkin Terminal Multimodal, had not progressed since its announcement in 2022, despite initial plans for a 2023 launch with potential customer Elengy, a specialist in liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Meanwhile, the Port of Marseille is working with SNCF Réseau on a project to develop combined transport. The project involves nearly 60 million euros of public investment and encompasses urban development and new terminals in Marseille and Miramas. In 2024, the modal share of rail for container traffic at the Fos terminals exceeded 17 percent, an 8 percent increase in train-borne box traffic.
Port of Sète
Still in southern France, west of Marseille, the Port of Sète will inaugurate a new rail freight terminal later this year, which has attracted an investment of 20 million euros. In November 2023, along with the Port of Calais, it became part of a sea-rail corridor established by rolling highway operator VIIA, a subsidiary of Rail Logistics Europe (SNCF Group), and Danish ro-ro shipping and logistics company DFDS, connecting Turkey with the UK.
Port of Dunkirk
Moving to northern France, the Port of Dunkirk is poised to launch construction on a combined transport terminal. This facility will enable trailers and swap bodies to be loaded onto rail wagons. The facility is scheduled to enter service early next year, and its management and operation have been put out to tender.
Intermodal transport services from the port’s container terminal already offer a range of connections with the main freight hubs in northern and southern France. Moreover, last year, CEVA Logistics began operations at its new finished vehicle logistics (FVL) hub at the Port of Dunkirk. The hub has a rail spur and connects to maritime import and export trade flows to and from the northern French maritime gateway.
