“Ensuring the regularity of trains and preserving biodiversity”: SNCF Réseau is testing an animal scaring system to avoid collisions

It has become one of the SNCF's fears: 15 trains are hit on average every day by wild animals crossing the tracks. To combat this phenomenon, SNCF Réseau, the railway infrastructure manager, is currently testing a device called Blue Sentinel, a system of sound and light warnings which are triggered before trains pass and scare off animals.

It is being tested in particular on portions of the Paris-Nantes line: in Oudon, in Loire-Atlantique, five kilometers of tracks along the Loire have been equipped. Every 50 meters, small green rectangular plastic markers are planted on stakes. “Plastic is designed to withstand sunlight and weather conditions,” explains Michaël Rublon, director of ElanRail, the French company which designed these connected, sound and light alert beacons, supposed to scare away animals a few seconds before the arrival of a train.

"The device is made to adapt to all types of species. There is a library of sounds inside, so-called 'evocative' sounds: dogs, firearms, weather sounds; and we also have so-called 'non-evocative' sounds, these are electronic sounds."

Michaël Rublon, director of ElanRail

at franceinfo

More than 150 trains pass here every day. The site for installing the beacons was not chosen at random: in the direct vicinity of an island on the Loire, which serves as a refuge for many animals. “We will say two thirds wild boar, one third deer such as deer. They regularly cross the Loire and our track to go to the other side of the track, in the fields and farms,” explains Catherine Denardou, wildlife manager at SNCF Réseau-Pays-de-Loire.

Beacons in five other regions

Since the installation of the beacons in the summer of 2024, collisions with trains have decreased by 90%. A figure which convinced SNCF Réseau to deploy the system in five other regions. For Vincent Auria, sustainable transformation manager at SNCF, "the goal is to avoid collisions and also to avoid killing animals. This solution is an avoidance solution, which allows us both to satisfy conditions of safety and regularity and also to preserve biodiversity."

Despite the effectiveness of the tests, SNCF Réseau focuses mainly on preventive treatment of vegetation along the track, to reduce the number of shrubs or forests where wild boars take shelter. As for ElanRail, the company hopes to soon be able to sell its Blue Sentinel system to other countries facing the same problems on their rail networks.