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Strategy
In 2011, we enjoyed renewed passenger traffic and revenue growth in Île-de-France, expansion in both France and the international markets, and strong growth in earnings and cash flow. All in all, a highly positive year for the RATP group, which is now reaping the benefits of efforts made to improve performance. However, these efforts will be sustained to meet the challenges facing us in the future.
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Developing an effective business model is crucial for any company. It is
particularly crucial for the RATP group given the challenges facing us and the
targets we have set ourselves in a competitive market. These include winning
engineering and then operating contracts for the future Greater Paris network,
doubling our size outside our historical home territory of Île-de-France, defending
our bus network in Île-de-France by improving productivity, and financing our
debt, which passed the €5 billion mark in 2011 following heavy investment in Île-de-France.
Apart from our transport services, which carry 12 millions passengers a day, and our many ongoing investment programmes, we focused our attention in 2011 on two major structural reforms ahead of signing the new contract with STIF (Île-de-France transport authority) in 2012, which still accounts for 85% of our revenues, and on drawing up our new “Vision 2020” business plan. This new eight-year plan will take us through from 2013 to 2020, preparing us for liberalisation of the public transport sector in Île-de-France. It aims to further improve the RATP group’s competitiveness, in line with achievements already made.
Financial performance coupled with social performance
At RATP, financial performance and social performance go hand in hand. New social performance actions were taken during 2011 in many key areas such as equal opportunities, well-being in the workplace and social dialogue. These issues underpin our Human Resources policy and support our financial performance policy. They were reflected in concrete actions throughout the 2011 social calendar and will be on the agenda again in 2012.
Highly positive results in 2011
The RATP group started 2011 with excellent momentum. In
Île-de-France, we carried 52 million passengers more than in 2010, including 20
million more on our bus network. Group revenue nearly reached the €5 billion
mark in 2011, increasing by 9% compared with 2010, to €4,983 billion. Following
their external and organic growth, our subsidiaries in France and the international markets accounted for 14% of
the total. Our profitability also improved for the fourth consecutive year,
with strong growth in both underlying net income and cash flow, up respectively
by 61% to €264 million and 24% to €847 million.
Our results in Île-de-France in 2011 reflected the impact of positive economic factors, but above all the continued turnaround of RATP begun in 2010 after a difficult year in 2009 caused by the economic crisis. We are achieving productivity gains at a rate of 1.5% a year on a like-for-like basis, in line with the target set in our business plan. Efficiency and productivity improvements will boost the Group’s cash flow and generate funds to finance its major investment programmes. The investment programme for 2012 will set a new record, with more than €1.6 billion being spent on our core Île-de-France network alone, an increase of 12%, and more than €0.6 million on increasing our transport capacity. Consequently, debt rose by a further €153 million, reaching €5,087 million at 31 December 2011. We cannot afford to relax our investment efforts given the financial constraints that will hamper local authorities and transport authorities in France and many other countries for the next few years.
Two major structural reforms
The “ORTF law” led us to create a new Infrastructure Management division on 1 January 2012, which will bring together more than 3,000 employees involved in infrastructure management activities. We have also drawn up a set of formal agreements governing the relationship between Infrastructure Management and other departments, in order to identify and bill all services contributing to Infrastructure Management’s operation and to ensure that there are no cross-subsidies with our transport network operations. However, RATP is still a single legal unit, enabling us to perpetuate effective internal processes in keeping with our tradition as an integrated company.
“Following the ORTF law, RATP has been given an ongoing infrastructure management mandate based on three requirements: safety, service continuity and interoperability”
At the same time as we set up Infrastructure Management, we also completed the final stage in the reorganisation of RATP’s engineering teams with the creation of a unified project engineering department to ensure consistent, integrated, professional handling of current and future projects for all our customers whether internal (transport operator, infrastructure manager) or external (STIF, Société du Grand Paris). This unified department will give us improved control over complex projects such as metro and RER network upgrades, under optimum cost and leadtime conditions.
