A 'LOW-COST' version of Spain's high-speed AVE rail link is set to go live in January, starting with the Madrid-Barcelona connection, one of its most heavily-frequented routes.
Public works and transport minister José Luis Ábalos says the company is busy with workshops in Málaga figuring out how to adapt the trains to the new 'budget' service, a business strategy aimed at getting more passengers on board.
Although they shift at record speed – able to get from Valencia to Madrid in under an hour and a half, a journey that would normally take three to four hours to drive – the AVE lines are comparatively expensive, which puts travellers off.
Rail travel in Spain is among the cheapest in western Europe, with a six-zone single on outer suburban trains costing under €5, but a one-way AVE ticket can come in at about €50, or nearly double the cost of travelling the same distance on the 'snail rail', or RENFE Larga Distancia or Media Distancia.
To this end, and given that the rail service in Spain will be open to private competitors from next December, RENFE is working hard on diversifying and on trying to seduce passengers – especially in light of Iberia's flight routes which can sometimes work out cheaper, as is often the case with the so-called 'air bridge' between Madrid and Barcelona, a popular commuters' route.
Up until around a year ago, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the AVE's launch from Santa Justa station in Sevilla, RENFE was offering 25,000 one-way tickets at €25 each on the 25th of each month, a promotion that carried on long beyond the landmark year and which often ended up with twice as many tickets being offered because of all of them being snapped up just minutes after midnight.
Earlier this year, RENFE's chairman Isaías Taboas said the low-cost AVE could be on track by Easter 2020, or eight months before the service opened up to competition – meaning other popular routes could start to appear on the AVE soon after the Madrid-Barcelona connection.
Prices, or the price difference between the conventional AVE and budget version, have not yet been confirmed.
Opening the rail market to competition will make the billions of euros of public funds invested in the industry go much further, as well as making tickets cheaper, allowing for multi-transport connections – such as rail-to-bus tickets bought in one hit – and pave the way for investment in more environmentally-friendly trains.
Ábalos, speaking of transport in general, has also mentioned that the reduction in tolls on motorways 'bought back' by the State at high cost to the public coffers has worked – lowering the prices by at least 30% has attracted an increase in traffic, meaning the motorways are now actually running at a profit.
Other toll motorways are set to become free of charge when their contracts expire next year – the most long-awaited, for travellers, being the AP-7 from San Juan, near Alicante, to Algemesí, just south of Valencia.
