Tours Tramway financed by a EUR 150 million loan from the EIB

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Metropolitan Community of Tours (Communauté d’Agglomération de Tours) announced the signing of finance contracts for a total of EUR 150m for the construction of the first tramway line in the Tours conurbation.    This operation is being carried out in cooperation with Caisse d’Épargne d’Indre et Loire, Crédit Agricole Touraine Poitou and Société Générale, which will act as intermediaries for the EIB funds. It is a large-scale, concrete project of direct benefit to citizens in their daily and professional lives, with the Bank bringing value added in the form of its technical and financial expertise, together with attractive lending terms.  The chosen financing structure, bringing the EIB together with commercial banks, will enable optimum terms to be offered to SITCAT (Syndicat Intercommunal des Transports en Commun de l'Agglomération Tourangelle), the Tours public transport authority.

This lending operation is designed to provide the Tours conurbation with a new, high-performance public transport system with a large passenger capacity. More specifically, it will help finance the construction of the first tramway of the Metropolitan Community of Tours and the acquisition of 21 trams, each with a capacity of 290 passengers. This new line, with a total length of 14.8 km, will have 29 stations. It will provide a frequent service between the city centre and the most densely populated districts, with trams stopping at the SNCF train station, the university, the sports arena and the Monnet and Vaucanson secondary schools, as well as the main business parks on the outskirts of the city. The project’s objective is to be efficient and to meet the conurbation's strong demand for public transport, estimated at 55 000 passengers a day or almost 15 million passengers a year.

The EIB is the leading investor in the sustainable public transport sector in France and has financed 25 tramways throughout the country and supported eight French regions with their railway network upgrading projects. High-speed railway lines (LGV) are also one of the EIB’s core activities. In 2011, the Bank provided loans totalling EUR 1.2 billion for the LGV Sud Europe Atlantique high-speed line. These operations tie in with the EIB’s ongoing priority action to develop sustainable public transport and thus significantly reduce urban pollution and CO₂ emissions (target of 20% by 2020).