4. The organization of the river industry and its evolution in Europe and France

4.1 The historical development of inland waterway transport

Historically, in France, the allocation of transport contracts was based on freight exchanges, which offered transport contracts within exchanges managed by the Office national de la navigation to bargemen registered on the exchange according to their time of arrival (tour de rôle). The system was liberalized in parallel with the implementation of the scrapping plan, so that river transport has been fully liberalized since 2000.

Following the scrapping plan and liberalization of the sector, groups of artisanal companies were set up, such as SCAT (société coopérative artisanale de transport), created in 1990, which groups together 70 independent boatmen, operates on the Seine and Nord basins and on...