Voies navigables de France

Manager of State waterways, VNF's mission is to create social, environmental and economic value around the waterway.

Steering committee

  • Communities
  • Air quality measurements,
  • Depollution,
  • Behaviour change,
  • Evaluation of emissions,
  • Mobility,
  • energies,
  • Knowledge improvement

A public establishment managing the waterways of the State in France, Voies navigables de France maintains, operates and develops the largest European network of waterways: 6 km of rivers, canals and canalized rivers, 700 engineering structures (locks , dams, canal bridges, etc.) and 4 hectares of river public domain. 

The Direction Territoriale Bassin de la Seine et Loire Aval (DTBS) is one of the 7 directions of Voies navigables de France. Linked to the seaports of Le Havre and Rouen and to many inland ports, the Seine basin represents approximately 25% of the French river network (1468 km of waterways), 40% of national traffic in tonnages transported and 50% in tonnes -kilometer.

National operator of the river ambition, VNF is 1 Unique Establishment which responds, on 2 complementary and connected networks (transport network and tourism network), to 3 major missions in the service of the public: promote river logistics, contribute to regional planning and ensure comprehensive water management.

The objectives and performance contract signed in April 2021 between the State and VNF provides in particular for a large-scale modernization of river management: remote control, automation, finer hydraulic management, innovation, but above all greening of the fleet, development of quayside electrical terminals, refueling of alternative fuels….

Faced with the climate emergency, river transport represents an immediately available solution to reduce the carbon footprint of freight transport.