Macquarie reports Paris-Rhin-Rhone Oct-Dec travel down 4.1%, revenue down 2%

A major French toll motorway Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhone (APRR) is suffering declines in traffic somewhat similar in scale to US tollroads. According to a report to the Australian Stock Exchange APRR's vehicle-km traveled declined to 4.54b in the December quarter of 2008 vs 4.73b in Dec Q 2007, a decline of 4.1%. Heavy goods (truck) traffic, 18% of the total, was down 10.5% Dec Q08 on previous corresponding period (pcp) and light vehicle traffic (cars) was only down 2.6%.

Car traffic is holding up well considering that DecQ07 benefitted by a strike at French railways which forced some train travelers to switch to the roads. Macquarie say however that the situation remains "highly volatile" but that traffic in December was steady despite poor winter travel conditions.

On the other hand truck traffic is down heavily from 901m veh-km (560m veh-miles) DecQ07 to 807m veh-km (501m veh-miles) in DecQ08, a drop of 10.5%.

A statement says that the drop in truck traffic was particularly marked after a spate of company announcements of short-time work.

Higher toll rates made up for some of the drop in traffic and toll revenues were E421.8m (@E=$1.40 $590m) DecQ08 vs E430.3m ($602m) DecQ07.

For the full calender year 2008 traffic was down 1.2% and toll revenues up 1.7% to E1782m ($2495m).

40% of toll transactions are by transponder  a major increase from 30% in 2007. Brandnamed Liber-t there are 607k transponders in use. All electronic tolling in France is roll-through with lanes gated, because French law does not allow violators to be pursued with video.

Apart from transponders much of the remaining toll collection is by self-swipe bank/credit card, magstripe or proximity card.

BACKGROUND: APRR is Europe's fourth largest toll operator with 2215km (1376 miles) of toll motorway located south and southeast of Paris to Lyon and into the French alps. The network (APRR & AREA) currently in service includes the Paris-Lyon route (A5, A6 and A39), a Burgundy-Northern Europe route (A31, A36), Alpine motorways in the Rhône-Alpes region (A40, A41, A42, A43, A48, A49 and A51 Nord) and motorways in central France (A77 and A71).

Fully state owned it was privatized in stages. It was publicly listed in Nov 2004 and 30% of the stock was sold to the public. The remaining 70% was sold by competitive bids to a consortium of Eiffage and Macquqarie in the second half of 2005, along with the state's share of the largest toller ASF, and SANEF.

They have a concession that does to the end of 2032.

Macquarie has 20.4% of the stock through MIG (Macquarie Infrastructure Group). Macquarie also has an interest through Eiffaire known as Macquarie European Infrrastructure Fund.

see http://www.aprr.com

TOLLROADSnews 2009-01-26