LGV Nord in the context of Belgium–France border

The European route E15 is part of the United Nations international E-road network. It is a north–south "reference road", running from Inverness, Scotland south through England and France to Algeciras, Spain. Along most of its route between Paris and London, the road parallels the LGV Nord (as the French A1 autoroute) and High Speed 1 (as the English M20 motorway). Its length is 2,300 miles (3,700 km).

The Channel Tunnel (French: Tunnel sous la Manche, sometimes referred to as the Chunnel) is a 50.46-kilometre (31.35-mile) railway tunnel beneath the English Channel that connects Folkestone in the United Kingdom with Coquelles in northern France. Opened in 1994, it remains the only fixed link between Great Britain and the European mainland.

The tunnel has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world, at 37.9 km (23.5 miles), and reaches a depth of 75 m (246 ft) below the sea bed and 115 m (377 ft) below sea level. It is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world. Although the tunnel was designed for speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph), trains are limited to a maximum speed of 160 km/h (99 mph) for safety reasons. It connects to high-speed railway lines on either end: the LGV Nord in France and High Speed 1 in the United Kingdom.

The TGV (French: [teʒeve] ; train à grande vitesse, [tʁɛ̃ a ɡʁɑ̃d vitɛs] , 'high-speed train') is France's intercity high-speed rail service. With commercial operating speeds of up to 320 km/h (200 mph) on the newer lines, the TGV was conceived at the same period as other technological projects such as the Ariane 1 rocket and Concorde supersonic airliner; sponsored by the Government of France, those funding programmes were known as champion national ('national champion') policies. In 2023 the TGV network in France carried 122 million passengers.

The state-owned SNCF started working on a high-speed rail network in 1966. It presented the project to President Georges Pompidou in 1974 who approved it. Originally designed as turbotrains to be powered by gas turbines, TGV prototypes evolved into electric trains with the 1973 oil crisis. In 1976 the SNCF ordered 87 high-speed trains from Alstom. Following the inaugural service between Paris and Lyon in 1981 on the LGV Sud-Est, the network, centred on Paris, has expanded to connect major cities across France, including Marseille, Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Rennes and Montpellier, as well as in neighbouring countries on a combination of high-speed and conventional lines. The success of the first high-speed service led to a rapid development of lignes à grande vitesse (LGVs, 'high-speed lines') to the south (Rhône-Alpes, Méditerranée, Nîmes–Montpellier), west (Atlantique, Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, Sud Europe Atlantique), north (Nord, Interconnexion Est) and east (Rhin-Rhône, Est). Since it was launched, the TGV has not recorded a single passenger fatality in an accident on normal, high-speed service.

The A1 Autoroute, also autoroutes autoroute du Nord (the Northern Motorway), is the busiest of France's autoroutes and is part of an environmental zones.(See below) With a length of 211 km (131 mi), it connects Paris with the northern city of Lille. It is managed by the Société des Autoroutes du Nord et de l'Est de la France (SANEF). The autoroute serves the northern suburbs of Paris, including the Stade de France, Le Bourget, Paris' Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport, and Parc Astérix. From there it crosses Hauts-de-France, without directly passing through any of the major cities of the région. Throughout Hauts-de-France, the A1 runs parallel to the LGV Nord.

Around 120 km (75 mi) from Paris, between the towns of Amiens and Saint-Quentin and near the Aire de service de Cœur des Hauts-de-France (the largest motorway plaza in Europe), the A1 crosses over the A29. A few dozen kilometers further north it forms the southern terminus of the A2, which branches off towards Brussels. The A1 is also crossed by the A26, the A21 and the A22, and it makes up part of European routes E15, E17, E19 and E42. in its northern terminus, the A1 turns into the A25.