In the Concessions arm, the maintenance business line involves responding to problems within a matter of hours, around the clock and whatever the weather. Users are generally unfamiliar with maintenance, a ‘low-profile’ business, but it is essential to ensuring an excellent quality of service and a safe, available and efficient infrastructure.
The Eiffage Concessions teams carry out multi-technical maintenance in many different areas, from railways, such as the Bretagne-Pays de la Loire high-speed rail line, to secondary schools, prisons, universities and hospitals. They also have to handle the technical constraints associated with operational work, on the Pierre Mauroy stadium for example or, in Senegal, the Avenir motorway.
This gives rise to a variety of often complex roles, such as work in confined spaces or at height, or handling sharp-edged materials. Our subsidiaries have put in place various safety-guarantee systems with a view to creating a ‘risk-free’ environment.
Elisa, the Pierre Mauroy stadium operator
This latest generation stadium is a 50,000-seat temple to sport. With a retractable pitch and roof, it can be transformed into an entertainment arena in less than 24 hours.
The Eiffage teams here play the role not only of maintainer but also technical operator. Every company that works at the site is bound by the risk prevention plan. Service providers submit details of the risks specific to their activity, and individual and collective preventive measures are then introduced to mitigate those risks.
A risk prevention officer oversees compliance with the prevention plan and the site safety procedures, in conjunction with the fire safety unit. During the event preparation and decommissioning phases, tasks are analysed and then ranked, isolated and scheduled at preparatory meetings with the various stakeholders, in particular to avoid any vertical duplication of activity.
SENAC SA, the Avenir motorway concession operator
This 42 km motorway has made it possible to considerably reduce journey times. It is also our first public-private partnership in sub-Saharan Africa.
Maintenance is a key lever for a motorway operator, making it imperative that the teams have the range of skill sets needed to deal with the various toll booth systems.
The Quality, Safety and Environment department takes a proactive approach to risk prevention by introducing organisational measures such as authorisations and safety visits, technical measures such as road markings and signage and ‘human’ measures such as training, medical monitoring and special equipment.
Employees are involved in these measures through bodies such as the workplace health and safety committee, which improves the prevention take-up rate and generates information about potentially dangerous situations. The work done by all the subsidiary’s employees enabled it in July 2018 to obtain ISO 45001:2018 certification for its workplace health and safety management system.
OPERE, the Bretagne-Pays de la Loire high-speed rail line maintainer
The 214 km Bretagne-Pays de la Loire high-speed rail line is part of the Atlantique high-speed rail line extension project. It has reduced the journey time between Paris and Rennes to less than one and a half hours.
To ensure that this infrastructure can operate continuously, most maintenance is preventive in nature, and carried out at night. Because it involves a large number of interfaces (SNCF network, RTE, SNCF Voyages, etc.), work must be done to particularly rigorous standards and safety rules complied with to the letter.
- OPERE has introduced various systems to that end, such as an initial six-to-eight month training programme followed by a refresher course every three years,
- nightly briefing sessions before work begins, and
- information and awareness-raising messages relayed on screens following feedback.
OPERE’s safety management system is approved by France’s National Rail Safety Body (Etablissement Public de Sécurité Ferroviaire - EPSF).
Eiffage Services, a service sector maintainer
Part of the Eiffage Concessions arm, Eiffage Services specialises in maintenance and facilities management.
It is involved at a very early stage of project design to identify maintenance phase risks and provide long-term solutions.
During the operating phase, safety awareness is instilled through each new employee’s induction and training process, which deals with the risks specific to their job and site.
In our maintenance role, every task is subject to a specific process designed to create a ‘risk-free, 100% safe’ environment.