Two French ‘combi’ players forge strategic partnership

Stuart Todd — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:35:17 +0000

Two French combined transport operators, Open Modal and Be Modal, have forged a strategic partnership, pooling their expertise and capacity and setting up a joint hub at Valenton in the Paris suburbs. The aim is to offer hauliers a more efficient, higher-capacity and increasingly reliable rail service by connecting various major routes across the country and optimising the continuity of freight flows, they said in a joint statement.
Effective earlier this week, trains operated by Be Modal from Rennes and Lyon have been connecting with those operated by Open Modal’s subsidiary, T3M from Lille, at Paris-Valenton. T3M and Be Modal are capacity-sharing on the Lille-Paris/Valenton route while the latter is expanding its offering by providing a new service between Paris/Valenton and Lyon-Vénissieux – a a major freight corridor connecting two of France’s key economic centres – Île-de-France and Rhône-Alpes, by rail.

“The synergy between the two partners transforms Valenton into a genuine logistics hub by synchronising train paths and streamlining the movement of goods, thus increasing train capacity for freight operators”, the statement noted. At the Valenton terminal, BTM and Combirail (Open Modal’s rail company) manage and coordinate handling and shunting operations to connect the T3M and Be Modal trains arriving from Lille, Rennes and Lyon. Both Open Modal and Be Modal acknowledged the support of French rail infrastructure manager, SNCF Réseau, in the development of the Valenton terminal.

Growth trajectory

Last month, Open Modal, whose activities span the entire combined transport chain, launched a new domestic route on its north-south Mediterranean corridor running from Lille to Miramas, near Marseille, via Bonneuil in the southeastern suburbs of Paris. Its 2025 turnover totalled 144 million euros and it employs 380 staff.

Be Modal is part of the Brittany-based Lahaye Global Logistics group, which previously disclosed to RailFreight.com that the subsidiary could launch a service for maritime containers between Rennes and France’s biggest box port, Le Havre, this year. It has a fleet of multi-purpose wagons, which are suitable for all types of containers and swap bodies, including self-contained refrigerated swap bodies. Be Modal has the capacity to operate more than of 800 trains per year, representing 17,000 UTI units or 34,000 TEUs.

Be Modal and HAROPA Port eye launch of Rennes-Le Havre rail freight service

Stuart Todd — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 09:36:11 +0000

Combined road-rail freight transport operator Be Modal, a subsidiary of Brittany-based Lahaye Global Logistics, could launch a service for maritime containers between Rennes, in Brittany and France’s biggest box port, Le Havre, next year.
The project was unveiled at a recent webinar organised by Brittany Supply Chain, an association of regional shippers and logistics companies.

Speaking at the webinar, Bastien Thirion, Lahaye’s director of rail freight, said that at the request of HAROPA Port, Be Modal has drawn up plans to establish a rail link between Rennes and the Port of Le Havre’s intermodal road-rail terminal. The route chosen would pass through the Greater Paris region, which offers more reliable rail infrastructure and better operating conditions than the more direct path via Normandy, he explained.

Depending on the interest of shippers

“We have opted for a schedule of two weekly round trips to not duplicate resources. In other words, to be able to manage this solution with a single train making round trips and a single wagon; thus allowing us to amortise our fixed costs as much as possible by having locomotives and wagons running practically all week.”

“Be Modal favours the provision of train sets of 20 80-foot intermodal wagons, specifically adapted to maritime containers. This type of equipment optimises the loading of 20-, 30- and 40-foot containers. A train set could hold up to 80 TEU,” Thirion noted. The company estimates that it could transport up to 15,000 boxes a year on the route (import and export), with trains also accommodating refrigerated containers.

Nevertheless, nothing is officially set yet. A survey will sound out interest among shippers in a Rennes-Le Havre combi service, and if this reveals that sufficient demand exists to justify its launch, the first trains could operate on the route in 2026, Thirion added.

French ports want multimodality with rail

Also speaking at the webinar was François-Xavier Marie, director of Development at HAROPA Port, the umbrella agency running the ports of Le Havre, Rouen and Paris, who underlined that the development of train-borne freight services was a key element in the grouping’s multi-modal transport strategy.

HAROPA Port’s rail freight services currently consist of 100 round trips by train weekly to 21 domestic and international destinations, including Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Fos-sur-Mer, Miramas, Avignon, Nova (Italy) and Chavornay (Switzerland), operated by Naviland Cargo, Ferrovergne, Delta Rail and T3M.

Marie pointed to the short-term objectives of HAROPA Port’s multimodal transport strategy. In 2023, the modal split for container traffic transported to and from its ports showed road having an 82 per cent share of the whole, followed by rail (10 per cent) and river (5 per cent). This year, the target is for road share to fall to 77 per cent, with rail and river share rising to 12 per cent and 8 per cent, respectively.

As for the modal split for bulk traffic transported to and from Le Havre in 2023, road’s share was 65 per cent, followed by rail (25 per cent) and river (10 per cent). This year, the objective is to reduce the road to 60 per cent, with rail and river increasing to 26 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.