Following on from 2021, rail has been identified as a powerful lever for the climate and the ecological transition. In view of these challenges, opening up to competition, which is an essential condition for increasing rail services, would appear to be a major asset for the environment, for the social and economic development of the regions, and for passengers. In actual fact, however, competition remains very limited.

In this context, LISEA has made the successful opening up of the market one of its major priorities for 2022. In order to facilitate and accelerate its implementation, LISEA has taken part in specialised French and European circles and conferences to emphasise how vital this is, both in terms of developing rail services and forwarding the ecological transition (ATEC-ITS Congress, European Mobility Expo, PRIME* platform, UIC meetings, “Les nouveaux aventuriers du rail” conference organised by Mobilettre and Le Train).

(*) Platform of Rail Infrastructure Managers in Europe

« SMR »

A key element in successfully opening up the market, the project for a Maintenance and Repairs Site (Site de Maintenance et de Remisage – SMR) for trains capable of travelling at high speed (Trains Aptes à la Grande Vitesse – TAGV), which the company has been leading since 2018, has made major progress. Two public meetings (on 14 June and 7 November) provided an opportunity to present developments in the project, to discuss and debate with local residents and, above all, to enrich the project. Governance based on consultation and dialogue has enabled us to take into account feedback from residents and come up with practical solutions, particularly in terms of noise protection and landscape integration.

Promoting sustainable building and social inclusion

In July 2022, the SEA Fund for regional transition (Fonds SEA pour la transition des territoires), supported by LISEA and MESEA, reaffirmed its commitment to the ecological transition of the regions crossed by the SEA HSL and to local initiatives, by committing €1 million to sustainable building.

• Firstly, through a partnership with Odéys (the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region’s sustainable construction and development cluster), supporting building projects investing in the circular economy and biosourced materials as part of the BDNA (Bâtiments Durables en Nouvelle-Aquitaine) approach – €700,000.
• Then, via the call for projects “Supporting structures for integration through economic activity (SIAE) in the development of the circular economy for sustainable construction” – €300,000. These concrete measures are fully in line with the Neo Terra regional roadmap and meet France’s commitments under the European Green Deal to divide greenhouse gas emissions by four by 2050.

15 winners of the “Supporting local and sustainable agriculture” call for projects

Following the first call for projects launched in April 2021, the SEA Fund selected 15 winners, all players in the ecological and inclusive transition in the six departments crossed by the high-speed line. These organisations will now benefit from logistical support and financial backing for their projects until 2026, totalling €500,000.

Each winning organisation will work on one of the following three areas depending on its project: the environmental performance of farms, the local development of a sustainable, solidarity-based organic market gardening industry, and research and experimentation to relocate the plant protein industry.

LISEA’s carbon footprint

In 2022, LISEA assessed the carbon footprint of its activities over the entire concession period. This assessment covers the construction of the SEA HSL, its maintenance as well as works and multiannual investment operations, and the traction energy needed to run the trains.

A LISEA-MESEA action plan will be rolled out in 2023 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and integrate carbon issues into the company’s projects.

Improving CSR performance

LISEA has launched a project to structure its CSR policy around six themes:

• Guaranteeing the security of the infrastructure;
• Committing to the development of low-carbon mobility and helping to combat climate change;
• Preserving biodiversity and reducing our impact on natural resources;
• Adopting an inclusive and fair company policy to support employees’ personal development;
• Working alongside our stakeholders to promote the dynamism and ecological transition of the regions crossed by the SEA HSL;
• Consolidating a corporate culture aligned with business ethics and sharing it throughout our value chain.

AI and DATA for the maintenance of the SEA HSL

LISEA has always placed innovation at the heart of its approach to performance and safety, in particular by professionalising data analysis methods and developing tools that leverage and optimise the data available on the infrastructure.

In 2022, the LISEA and MESEA teams will continue to ramp up their data engineering skills by integrating the line’s switches into the SEACloud general data analysis tool. This application, called “Aigu[IA]ge”, is used to monitor the condition of switches and understand their deterioration process. This is an indispensable tool to help the business experts of the concessionaire and maintainer understand and model switch and crossing deterioration in the short and medium term so as to optimise maintenance and renewal.

A new project, ISO[IA], was launched at the end of 2022. Its aim is to model variations in electrical cable insulation in order to prevent and locate faults and thus avoid incidents that could have a major impact on traffic.

CompenSEA: the first data centralisation platform for environmental measures

Designed by LISEA, CompenSEA is the first digital platform for managing compensatory measures. This is an innovative solution for collecting, centralising and pooling data on the 330 compensation measure sites spanning the SEA HSL, spread over 3,800 hectares, with all the players involved (including government departments and environmental associations). The objective? To facilitate governance and monitoring planning, and share in real time the information needed to manage compensation measures. A new version went live in December 2022.