National report Spain – June 2009

Positive points for public transport in our country:

1. An agreement between the Spanish and Catalan governments was signed in order to transfer to the Catalan authorities the Renfe’s suburban trains: 467 km of tracks (most of them in double track), 107 stations and 120 millions users per year. The transference will take place on 1st January 2010.
2. The city of Sevilla opened its first metro line (18 km most of it on surface as a suburban train). The first reports show at not very high number of users, more or less 50.000 per day. The Autonomous Community of Andalucía has made a strong bet for local trains, whether in metro format whether in tram format. It is expected that over the next years almost 10 new rail urban systems will be opened.
3. On the other hand, the city of Tenerife in Canarias Island opened its second tram line. The first one has had a very high success with more than 20 millions passenger per year.
4. The Ministry of Fomento (Public Works) announced plans of improvement and enlargement both suburban trains in Madrid and Barcelona for more than 4.000 millions Euros each one
5. PTP got an agreement with three main Spanish NGO’s in order to develop and work on the so-called 2020 Spain Train Plan, following the criteria that were used in the Catalan 2014 Train Plan in which services criteria were put upward instead of mere infrastructure criteria.
6. The number of death and injured people in road accidents in Spain continues declining year by year.
7. Spanish President Rodríguez Zapatero announced the creation at the beginning of the year of the transport-cheque that will allow the entrepreneurs to discount on their tax payments the 25% of the money that they will spend paying the public transport of their employees (like in Belgium more or less).
8. PTP presented its television series ‘Mobilitats’ (in Catalan can be heard from Theory that the number of users increases more rapidly with the management of mobility with the growth of infrastructure. See http://mobilitats.minisites.xtvl.tv/
9. The Safe and Sustainable Mobility Foundation in which PTP participates presented last week its trilingual Portal of Mobility, PoMo, that establishes the basis for WikiMob development
   http://www.fundaciomobilitatsostenible.org/pomo/index.php?lang=en

Negative points for public transport in our country:

1. 1. Despite the huge amount of public investment in the HSL between Barcelona and Madrid, at end of 2008 the share of the train is still lower than that one of the plane.
2. Except in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, the rest of Spanish metropolitan areas suffered a decline in 2008 in the number of passengers. Specially serious was the decline of Madrid, the city around Europe that more money spent in new urban rails. This could confirm the quite spread theory that the number of users increases more quickly with measures on mobility management than with the amount of provided infrastructure.
3. Saying that the Catalan authorities should support the Catalan automation factories, the Catalan Government went beyond the Spanish Government supports to the renovation of private fleets, and agreed to subsidy with 500 Euros the purchase of any vehicle, including SUV, until the limit of 50.000 Euros. This will lead to a serious contradiction with the Catalan strategy against climate change since vehicle with until 270 g CO2 /km will be subsidized. Only the ‘green’ part of the government voted against this measure.