High-Speed Railways in Spain

Why Rail?

As Spain strengthened its economy in the 1980s following its emergence from economic isolation, the decision about how best to invest in infrastructure development became paramount. Rail offered a wide variety of benefits. Development of rail, it was determined, provided the best means for increasing economic development in the outlying areas of the country by providing speedy and straightforward travel between cities, while addressing environmental concerns. “Until 1986, rail had been languishing,” says Jorge del Fresno, vice president of Ineco-Tifsa, a rail consulting and engineering company. “It had been doing worse and worse because people weren’t satisfied with the rail service, and they turned increasingly to roads and planes.”

The decision to invest in high-speed rail also came about in part because of a need to reduce greenhouse gases under Spain’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Rail, which runs on electricity (and electricity in Spain is partly generated by renewable sources such as wind), is significantly cleaner than either planes or cars. The data for the Madrid-Seville line support the investment in high-speed rail: before the advent of the new line, 11 percent of passengers traveled to Seville by plane and 60 percent by car. After the AVE began service, only 4 percent traveled by plane, 34 percent by car, and more than half on the train.

“With rail and the use of significantly cleaner electricity,” says Jiménez of ADIF, “our dependence on petroleum is greatly reduced.”

According to Spanish government studies, consumers can be convinced to switch to rail if the journey is as short as two and a half hours. Any minor reduction in time past two and a half hours does not significantly increase passenger demand along the line. “What we’ve found is not that the passengers need to arrive even more quickly,” says Jiménez, “but that they want access to the city centers in a timely fashion. Our stations have an advantage over flying due to their placement.”

The government has also studied public response to high-speed rail, and in general the response is highly favorable. In addition to the comfort and ease of travel, the line from Madrid to Seville offers the only money-back policy in the world that refunds the entire fare if there’s even a five-minute delay. The policy was implemented in 1994, two years after the Madrid-Seville line opened, and less than 0.25 percent of all trips since then have resulted in a return of ticket fares. (Though that assurance has not yet been implemented in all the newer lines, representatives say the goal is to have every high-speed rail line in Spain carry the on-time guarantee.)

In addition, the movement of passengers to high-speed has freed up conventional rail. Rail operators are taking advantage of this by increasing the commercial traffic on those lines.

After 2003, the government investments in rail, both high-speed and conventional, surpassed those dedicated to roads; they recently reached more than $6 billion a year, approximately 0.6 percent of the Spanish GDP.