“We are ready”: SNCF ready to welcome 24 million passengers for the 2024 Olympic Games

“If the SNCF stumbles, the Olympic Games go badly, we are indispensable.” These are the words with which SNCF CEO Jean-Pierre Farandou launched his press conference this Friday, in the industrial setting of the Voie 24 third place, near the Gare de Lyon. With 28 days to go before the start of the events, the boss nevertheless rules out the risk of a bad scenario: “We are ready,” enthuses the group’s boss.

The SNCF has strengthened its transport offer by 15% compared to that usually offered in summer. These are 4,500 additional trains, at a rate of 300 trains per day, which will be added to ordinary rotations and which will serve 79% of the Olympic sites throughout the territory.

An unprecedented crowd

“On the RER C, which will connect some of the main competition venues (Parc des Princes, Saint-Quentin en Yvelines velodrome, Invalides, etc.), 560 additional trains will run throughout the duration of the games,” explains Jean-Pierre Farandou. The renovation of 34 stations, including the Gare du Nord, and the delivery of infrastructure projects such as the extension of the RER E to Nanterre, will help meet the “major operational challenge” that this sporting event represents.

“The first best souvenir for tourists”

11,000 reinforcements will come to support the SNCF teams to deal with this influx of travelers. Their mission will be to welcome, guide and inform spectators. Deployment of a translation application, special “Olympic Games” signage to streamline the journey for travelers, strengthening security in stations, will complete the system. “Our ambition is to make arriving at the station the first best memory of the Olympics for tourists,” confides Jean-Pierre Farandou.

For the entire Olympic Games system, a recruitment campaign was launched at the beginning of 2023. A total of 8,400 recruitments are planned for the whole of 2024. Drivers, controllers, maintenance agents, are the main professions sought. These recruitments are coupled with “a peaceful social atmosphere” since in particular the Olympic agreement signed by three trade union organizations in June.

The SNCF will also be present on a sporting level during these Olympic Games through its “athlete system” set up in 1982. The group today supports around thirty athletes by offering them an employment contract which makes it possible to reconcile professional career and high-level sport. Eight athletes from this system are now qualified for the 2024 Olympics.