The yellow/silver design of the machine makes clear that these machines are predominately ordered for working trains for maintenance and infrastructure works, as yellow is the base colour used for rolling stock of SNCF Réseau.

Lease company Akiem will be the owner of the 44 machines and lease them to SNCF. The Akiem version of the DE18 will have a top speed of 120 km/h and 230 kN tractive effort (starting at 24 km/h). Its weight is 80 tonnes. The machines will be equipped with KVB, RPS, DAAT, TVM430, GSM-R and ERTMS Baseline 3.