Orange with 6Medias, published on Thursday, March 31, 2022 at 6:32 p.m.
By 2026, the SNCF plans to inaugurate a new type of vehicle, capable of circulating both on the roads and on the railways, reports The cross. Enough to serve rural areas hitherto forgotten by public transport.
SNCF prepares for the future and could inaugurate, by 2026, a hybrid vehicle, halfway between a big car and a small train, as told The cross, Thursday, March 31st. baptized Flexyit will run on electric batteries and will aim to provide better service to rural areas where public transport does not pass.
It would thus make it possible to connect these territories to city centers and stations.
“Many regions are positioning themselves so that experiments take place on their network“, assures Carole Desnot, patron saint of innovations at the SNCF. The wheel of this vehicle with its singular appearance was developed by Michelin. Able to carry up to nine passengers, it can both take the rails of the rail network and travel on the road to reach the villages, enough to avoid the closure of the small lines, regularly reproached to the SNCF for several years.
Rethinking regional trains
This project for a new vehicle is therefore part of a broader desire by the SNCF to rethink its regional trains, specifies La Croix. New trains, lighter than the current TER, should arrive around 2028. The train Draizy must, for example, be able to transport around thirty people and travel on lines with little traffic, whereas the TER trains sometimes only transport around ten passengers today. “Innovative light trains” must also replace the TER on certain portions of degraded tracks that they are often too heavy to borrow.
As Flexy, these trains will operate using electric batteries, the lines concerned not being electrified, for the most part. New trains which, like the future generation of TGV, should increasingly use automatic driver assistance systems. The SNCF does not, however, provide a driverless train.