Administrative regulations for urban guided transport, secondary railroads, tourist railways and rail bikes

The French Transport Code contains all legislation applicable to the safety of guided public transport systems.

The first part of the code sets out the rules for commencing work, putting systems into service and the provisions applicable to systems in operation.

The second part of the code is devoted to rail and guided transport and gives the definition of rail and guided transport: “For the purposes of this code, any public transport system whose vehicles are required to follow a specific trajectory along all or part of their route, with the exception of lift systems covered by the Tourism Code and transport systems located within a facility subject to the regulations governing public access buildings, fairground activities or parks, is referred to as rail or guided transport.”

The procedures for assessing and inspecting public transport systems are set out in Decree No. 2017-440 of 30 March 2017 on the safety of guided public transport (STPG Decree).

The decree includes the following:

• the role of approved qualified organisations;
• the various paperwork required for the assessment phase;
• the framework for managing safety during operation of the system;
• the procedures for inspecting these systems and their operators.

The decree has 9 titles:

1. Title I covers common provisions;
2. Title II concerns the authorisation procedures applicable to public guided transport in the Ile-de-France region and in an urban transport area (cableway installations that provide regular passenger transport other than exclusively for tourist, historical or sports purposes, within the jurisdiction of one of the public transport authorities, are covered by Title II of the STPG decree);
3. Title III covers the authorisation procedures applicable to mixed systems, i.e. those whose vehicles operate both on an interoperable rail system and on a Title 2 network (e.g. tram-train);
4. Title IV is applicable to cableway installations and cog railroads that provide public transport exclusively for tourism, historical or sports purposes;
5. Title V covers the authorisation procedures applicable to systems that provide public transport exclusively for tourism, historical or sports purposes;
6. Title VI covers the authorisation procedures applicable to all other systems (e.g., secondary railroads as long as they do not fall within the scope of Titles II to V respectively);
7. Title VII covers the authorisation procedures for systems supporting the transport of goods and people;
8. Title VIII provides the procedures for inspecting operations;
9. Title IX contains various provisions.