Glossary — oversight of transport public service delegations

What is a TER agreement (convention TER)?

The TER agreement is the contract by which a Region, acting as transport authority (AOM), entrusts the operation of the regional rail service to an operator. It sets the service offer, the quality-of-service targets, the Region’s financial contribution and the adjustment mechanisms (rebates, penalties). It is the reference document underpinning any oversight of service delivery.

What is an operating CCTP?

The CCTP (particular technical specifications) is the document that precisely describes the expected service: routes, frequencies, rolling stock, quality indicators, and how they are measured and controlled. A well-written CCTP determines the authority’s later ability to hold the operator to account: it defines what is measurable, admissible and sanctionable.

What is a rebate (réfaction)?

A rebate is a reduction of the financial contribution paid to the operator when the delivered service does not comply with the agreement (cancelled trains, delays, degraded quality). It is not a sanction: it is the adjustment of the price paid to the service actually delivered. This still requires quantifying the gap between planned and delivered service — the purpose of the data audit.

Rebate or penalty: what is the difference?

A rebate adjusts payment to the service actually delivered (you pay less because you received less). A penalty sanctions a contractual breach (an amount owed on top, as a sanction). Both often coexist in the same agreement, and their amount may be capped — a drafting choice with real consequences: a low cap neutralises the financial effect of the gaps, whereas an agreement that sets none keeps its full leverage. Applying either always requires an independent, documented measurement of the gaps.

What is the “grey zone”?

The grey zone refers to incidents whose cause is ambiguous or classified in the operator’s favour — often as an “external” or “exonerating” cause (weather, infrastructure, third parties) rather than a penalisable internal cause. Reducing the grey zone means objectively re-classifying these incidents from the data, to restore the share genuinely attributable to the operator.

What is an innovation procurement (article R2122-9-1 of the CCP)?

Article R2122-9-1 of the French Public Procurement Code lets a public buyer award a contract by mutual agreement, without prior advertising or competition, for the purchase of innovative works, supplies or services, within a threshold set by regulation (around €100,000 excl. VAT). It gives authorities a fast route to trial an innovative audit or oversight solution.

What is the opening of TER to competition?

The EU Fourth Railway Package (Regulation 2016/2338, amending Regulation 1370/2007) made competitive tendering the default rule for awarding rail public service contracts. Since 25 December 2023, directly awarding a new TER contract to the incumbent operator is no longer the norm: barring limited, framed exceptions, any new contract must in principle go through a competitive tender. The last directly-awarded agreements — mostly signed in 2022-2023 for up to ten years — run until the end of 2033 at the latest; when they expire, operation must be put out to tender. This deadline makes the data audit strategic: to launch a fair tender and draft a robust specification, the authority needs an independent, factual view of the existing network’s real production.

What is a public service obligation (PSO)?

A public service obligation (PSO) is a requirement imposed on an operator to guarantee a service of general interest that it would not provide — or not on the same terms — on purely commercial logic (thin routes, social fares, frequencies). In regional transport, the public service contract frames these obligations and the compensation paid in return (EU “PSO” Regulation No 1370/2007).

AOM, AOT, AO: who organises regional transport?

The organising authority (AO) is the public body responsible for a public transport service. It is now called the mobility organising authority (AOM) since the French mobility law; the older term transport organising authority (AOT) is still common. For TER, it is the Region: it defines the offer, funds the service and oversees its delivery. It is the authority that Markellia supports — never the operator.

Punctuality, regularity, delivery rate: what are the differences?

Punctuality measures the share of trains arriving on time (within a delay threshold). Regularity measures the share of trains that actually ran (not cancelled). The delivery rate relates on-time trains to trains that actually ran, whereas the official rate often relates them to the trains scheduled in the plan: hence a gap, because trains that did not run drop out of the calculation and can lift the headline figure. Distinguishing these indicators is essential to read service quality honestly.

Cancelled, called off, de-scheduled trains: what do these terms cover?

A train may fail to run at different moments, which changes how it is treated: a cancellation planned in advance (often de-scheduled from the plan and excluded from some indicators), a late removal (the day before or same day), or a partial cancellation (a train stopping before its terminus). These distinctions determine whether the missing service is counted, penalised — or hidden.

GTFS, NeTEx, GTFS-RT, SIRI: which data to audit production?

These are public-transport data standards. For the theoretical offer (stops, routes, planned timetables): GTFS, the de facto international standard, and NeTEx, the European standard (CEN norm) used as the reference format on France’s national access point (transport.data.gouv.fr). For real time (positions, delays, cancellations): GTFS-RT and SIRI, its European counterpart (CEN). By cross-referencing the theoretical offer with the actual service from these open feeds, one reconstructs the network’s effective production — independently of the operator’s reports.

What is client-side advisory (AMO)?

Client-side advisory (AMO — assistance à maîtrise d’ouvrage) is the support of a principal — here the transport authority — by an independent third party, to steer a project or contract it does not fully master in-house. In transport-DSP oversight, independent AMO equips the authority to audit the data, negotiate its agreements and prepare for competition — serving the authority, never the operator.

DSP, concession, public contract: how can TER be operated?

These are three ways of framing the contractual relationship. Under a public contract, the operator is paid a price by the authority, which keeps most of the operating risk. Under a concession — of which the French délégation de service public (DSP) is the classic form — the operator bears real operating risk and is remunerated substantially on results. The regional rail public service contract is framed by the PSO Regulation (No 1370/2007); depending on the revenue-risk split the Region chooses, it leans toward one logic or the other. This choice is structural for oversight: it determines who bears the gap between planned and actually delivered service.

What is the ART (French transport regulator)?

The Autorité de régulation des transports (ART) is the sector’s independent regulator. For rail, it oversees network access conditions and fair competition, issues opinions — notably in the context of the opening of TER to competition — and supports authorities’ access to the data needed to award contracts. For a Region preparing a tender, the framework set by the ART reinforces its right to obtain from the incumbent operator the information required for a fair competitive process.

Train paths and infrastructure charges: what are they?

A train path (sillon) is the infrastructure capacity reserved for a train to run on a given route at a given time; it is allocated by the infrastructure manager (SNCF Réseau). In return for using the network, the operator pays an infrastructure charge (access charge). These elements weigh on the cost and the production of the service: a cancelled or degraded path feeds through to the trains that actually run, hence to regularity indicators and, ultimately, to rebates.

Rolling stock: what happens to it when TER opens to competition?

Rolling stock (the trainsets) is a core asset of the service. When TER opens to competition, the law organises its continuity for the benefit of the transport authority: the Region can become owner of the publicly-funded stock and make it available to the future operator, so that a new entrant is not shut out for lack of trains. Knowing the real condition, availability and maintenance of this fleet — made objective through data — is a precondition for a balanced tender.

Steering committee, line committee: what are they for?

These are the governance bodies of the agreement. The steering committee (comité de suivi) periodically brings together the authority and the operator to review contract delivery: quality indicators, rebates, action plans. Line committees involve elected officials, users and local stakeholders in monitoring a given service. For the authority, the value of these bodies rests on the quality of the shared information: independent data avoids debating service production on the operator’s figures alone.

What is an incentive mechanism (bonus-malus)?

An incentive mechanism adjusts the operator’s remuneration to its performance: a bonus when it exceeds targets (punctuality, ridership, satisfaction), a malus when it falls short. Unlike a rebate, which adjusts the price to the service delivered, an incentive is meant to steer the operator’s behaviour over time. Its effectiveness depends on measurable, non-manipulable indicators — hence the importance of an independent measurement of results.

Amendment, review clause: how does the agreement evolve?

An amendment (avenant) is a negotiated change to the agreement during its performance (offer, indicators, financial contribution), within the limits allowed by public procurement law. A review clause (clause de revoyure) schedules in advance moments to re-examine certain contract parameters at set dates or upon significant change. Well prepared from factual data, these renegotiation points are, for the authority, an opportunity to correct an imbalance or tighten poorly calibrated indicators.

What is lotting (allotissement) of a TER network?

Lotting means splitting the competitive tender into several lots — for example by groups of lines or mobility areas — rather than into a single contract. It shapes the number and profile of bidders, the level of competition and the resilience of the service (an incident on one lot does not bring down the whole network). Defining relevant lots requires a fine knowledge of real, line-by-line production — something only an independent analysis of the data can make objective.

Operational definitions, with no legal force; the regulatory citations are given for indication and should be checked against the version in force.