Use of public transport on the up

The number of passengers reached 4.631 billion, compared with 4.516 billion in 2015.

According to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (NIE), urban transport went up by 2.3% last year and intercity transport increased by 2.7%.

In terms of urban transport, last year saw more growth in bus travel (up by 3%) than in metro travel (up by 1.2%).

In terms of intercity travel, the number of people opting for air travel increased by 8.8%, compared with a 1.5% increase in the number of rail passengers and a 13.1% increase in martitime transport.

Almost 34 billion domestic flights were taken, whereas over 580 billion intercity or long-distance rail journeys were made. The use of Spain's high-speed rail links (AVE) went up by 4.8% between January and December last year.

More than 675 billion intercity bus journeys were made in 2016, and over 10 billion ferry journeys to move from one city to another.

In December alone, more than 378.8 million people used public transport, 1% more than in the same month the previous year.

The AVE, however, saw a 6.7% year-on-year drop in the number of passengers in December last year, with air travel increasing by 5.9% in the same month.