1. The role of river transport

1.1 A little-known importance

In France, waterways account for less than 3% of the modal split. This figure vastly underestimates its importance, since only half of the country's territory is irrigated by the network. In terms of wetted départements, the waterways' share is around 7% in terms of tonne-kilometres (t · km).

But this figure is still reductive, as traffic is concentrated on the wide-gauge sections of the waterway network. In fact, flows generated on the Freycinet network, which is only accessible to barges with a carrying capacity of no more than 350 t, are in sharp decline. So much so that today, the almost 4,000 km of this network generate only a marginal share of total traffic. Almost all activity is therefore concentrated on 1,800 km of track...