The creation of Roissy Carex

On 8^th February 2006, the local and regional authorities, major air freight operators and the airport management authority, Aéroports de Paris, decided to unite their resources and efforts and think about setting up a very high-speed European rail freight service for servicing areas situated 300 - 800 kms from Paris - Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport.

Under the guidance of Yanick Paternotte, then 1^st Vice-President of the Val d'Oise General Council and President of the Val d'Oise Economic Expansion Committee (CEEVO), they created the ROISSY CAREX association in order to precisely define the Carex concept and measure its technical and economic feasibility. FedEx, Air France-KLM Cargo, La Poste, TNT, WFS and Aéroports de Paris are the private partners present at the formation of the association and joined by UPS in 2008. Roissy-Porte de France Community of communes, Roissy Développement, its economic development agency, the communes of Goussainville and Tremblay-en-France and the Val d'Oise General council are the public founder members of Roissy Carex. The association then welcomed new public partners: Réseau Ferré de France, the departments of Seine-Saint-Denis and Seine-et-Marne and finally the Île-de-France Region.

The following pioneering partners and representatives are worth a mention: the Ile de France Regional Public Works Directorate, the Plaine de France Public Urban Planning Establishment, the Île-de-France Institute for Urban Planning and Development, the Île-de-France Regional Development Agency, TLF, the Circle for Optimodality in Europe.

Investors and developers interested in developing the project and members of ROISSY CAREX are then going to meet within the independent Eurocarex Club organisation. They are mainly GA Promotion, Unibail, Pitch promotion, AMB, Prologis, Lasalle Investment Manager... SNCB Holding and the SNCF are also members of the Eurocarex Club.

The Carex adventure which started at Roissy rapidly spread to Lyons, Liege, London and Amsterdam.