The Grande Ceinture is now entirely dedicated to freight traffic in its northern and eastern section between Sartrouville and Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, linking up the western (Normandy), northern (Picardie, Benelux, Great Britain), east (Lorraine, Alsace, Germany) and south-eastern and south-western routes and their extensions into Italy, Switzerland and Spain, and the connections between the different factories of Île-de-France.

The southern section, between Versailles-Chantiers and Juvisy is also used by suburban trains (RER C) and TGV services (Le Havre-Rouen-Lyon-Marseille link).

Further development has seen the section from St Cyr L'École to Saint Germain reopen with a tram-train service starting in 2022.

In 1939, most of the Grande Ceinture closed to passenger traffic, which was left with only the Versailles - Massy-Palaiseau - Juvisy-sur-Orge section.

Running through areas that were then under-urbanised and not linking into the necessary suburban rail-routes, it is thus unsurprising that the Grande Ceinture's passenger service proved unable to withstand the increasing use of cars, buses and other modes of transport.

The desire to introduce large freight trains onto the Grande Ceinture gave rise to the project to electrify its southern section with a continuous current of 1500 Volts.

From the winter service in 1984 onwards, a new direct TGV link from Lille to Lyon was proposed using the Grande Ceinture Est routes from the junction at Stains to Valenton.

Traffic then runs through Noisy-le-Sec but certain trains also loan the "Complémentaire" if there are engineering works or other disruptions.