SPAIN'S high-speed AVE rail link is about to launch a 'low-cost' version – as reported earlier this autumn – which will be called the 'AVLO', according to transport board RENFE.
Unlike the mainstream AVE trains, which are white, the 'AVLO' will be purple, and as tickets are much cheaper, will not have a buffet car or VIP coaches.
The first of these, says acting minister for public works José Luis Ábalos, will hit the track on April 6, coinciding with Easter, and operate what is currently the busiest rail – and road and air – route in Spain: the Madrid-Barcelona stretch.
It will also serve Zaragoza, Spain's fifth-largest city and the capital of the north-eastern region of Aragón.
Tickets will go on sale before the end of January.
Ábalos says the 'AVLO' will eventually roll out to the rest of the AVE network across Spain, which includes Sevilla-Madrid and Valencia-Madrid, but exact launch dates have not been revealed.
It will have 20% more seats than the AVE, and is aimed at 'families, young people and other groups who only use the high-speed rail link very occasionally'.
At present, a total of 511 million passenger seats are taken up on Spain's rail network every year – the equivalent of the entire population of the European Union or nearly 11 times that of Spain – and of these, 22 million, or the equivalent of nearly half Spain's headcount, are on the express AVE lines.
From the end of 2020, rail services in Spain will be open to competition, since historically, they have been entirely operated by State-run RENFE and rail infrastructure built and maintained by the public sector firm ADIF.
This means RENFE has to work hard to either lower prices or improve quality of service for the prices it currently charges in order to keep customers.
Ábalos says the 'AVLO' is expected to account for 20% of RENFE's turnover within less than 10 years.
